Archaeology

Paleoethnobotanists use a variety of methods to recover and identify plant remains. One method used to recover macroremains (objects larger than 100 µm, but smaller than 10 cm) is to sieve excavated material manually in a water bath in order to allow the organic material to float to the surface.

This method is known as flotation. The matrix (the soil from a suspected archaeological feature) is slowly added to agitated water. The soil, sand, and other heavy material, known as heavy fraction, will sink to the bottom. The less dense organic material such as charred seeds, wood and bone will tend to float to the surface. The material that floats to the top, called light fraction, is gathered with a sieve. The organic light fraction is then available for examination. Samples of the heavy fraction are also gathered for later analysis.

Other types of flotation processes include machine-assisted flotation and froth flotation. Paleoethnobotany makes it is possible to collect data on past cultures through plant remains, which may offer insight on how agriculture changed over time. It may also provide evidence of trading systems, or knowledge of medicinal properties of plant materials. Paleoethnobotany can also be used to help understand the diet of a culture, and when used in collaboration with zooarchaeology it offers insight on what animals may have been present