IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0286190.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Morphometrics of waterlogged archaeological seeds give new insights into the domestication and spread of Papaver somniferum L. in Western Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Ana Jesus
  • Vincent Bonhomme
  • Allowen Evin
  • Raül Soteras
  • Stefanie Jacomet
  • Laurent Bouby
  • Ferran Antolín

Abstract

Domesticated opium poppy Papaver somniferum L. subsp. somniferum probably originated in the Western Mediterranean from its possible wild progenitor, Papaver somniferum L. subsp. setigerum and spread to other European regions. Seeds of opium poppy have been identified in different European regions since the Early Neolithic (from the 6th millennium cal. BC onwards) period. However, until recently, the absence of morphological identification criteria has prevented the discrimination between wild and domestic morphotypes. New morphometric approaches to distinguish modern subspecies have been proven to be applicable to waterlogged archaeological remains, opening the possibility of understanding the process of domestication of the plant in both time and space. This paper applies seed outline analyses, namely elliptic Fourier transforms, combined with size and number of cells to archaeological waterlogged Papaver seeds throughout the Neolithic period in the NW Mediterranean and the surroundings of the Alps. Furthermore, one example from the Late Bronze Age (LBA) was added to see what kind of differences appeared during the >1000 years between the end of the Neolithic and the LBA. The aim of the study is to classify the archaeological seeds as domestic or wild morphotypes and observe morphometric changes in connection to geographical and chronological patterns that can explain the spread and domestication process(es) of this important crop. A total of 295 archaeological seeds coming from 10 waterlogged sites dating between 5300–2300 cal. BC (Neolithic), and one LBA site dating to 1070 cal. BC were analysed. The results indicate the presence of seeds, similar to the wild morphotype, in the Mediterranean sites and larger seeds, similar to the domestic morphotype, in the regions surrounding the Alps. The number of cells mainly increased during the Late Neolithic (3300 to 2300 cal. BC) and, finally, in the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1050–800 cal. BC), larger, morphologically domesticated seeds are clearly predominant. A change in the shape of the seeds is only clearly visible in the LBA material. Altogether our results suggest that opium poppy seeds show no sign of domestication in the early periods of the Neolithic, despite the fact that the plant was very probably already cultivated at that time in the western Mediterranean region.

Suggested Citation

  • Ana Jesus & Vincent Bonhomme & Allowen Evin & Raül Soteras & Stefanie Jacomet & Laurent Bouby & Ferran Antolín, 2023. "Morphometrics of waterlogged archaeological seeds give new insights into the domestication and spread of Papaver somniferum L. in Western Europe," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(5), pages 1-26, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0286190
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0286190
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286190
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286190&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0286190?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0286190. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.