Under the supervision of John K. Papadopoulos, John Marston will undertake the analysis of archaeological plant remains from more than 2000 years of occupation at the ancient city of Gordion in central Anatolia, modern Turkey. Over this span of time, Gordion was the capital of the indigenous Phrygian kingdom, and later was governed successively by the Persian, Hellenistic Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Seljuk Turk empires. The site was finally abandoned in the Medieval period. Marston's research focuses on the relationship between cultural and environmental change, and how individuals made land use decisions within those varied social and natural environments.
Research into past environments and human response to changes in the cultural and natural landscapes can be addressed through the study of ancient plant remains. Seeds and wood may be preserved as charcoal through incomplete burning and become indicators of the agricultural and natural vegetation in the area. Carbonized plant remains have been systematically recovered at Gordion since 1988, and this project includes the study of plant remains from more than 200 archaeological contexts. Marston will test the expectations of human behavioral ecology models that predict that farmers and herders aim to maximize agricultural yield while minimizing the risk of subsistence failure. Variables investigated include consideration of the relative benefits of farming versus herding, irrigation versus dryland farming, and foddering versus pasturing of domestic animals. Certain classes of botanical remains derived from crop processing debris, burned animal dung, and cooking accidents distinguished archaeologically are chosen as proxy markers for statistical analyses to test competing behavioral models. Comparison with contemporary archaeological evidence for cultural affiliation will help determine whether cultural transmission processes affect diet choice and subsistence strategies for immigrant populations residing at Gordion.
In addition to the contribution this research makes to regional studies of archaeology and ancient environment, broader impacts of this research include implications for current policies of land use and conservation in central Anatolia, new perspectives for presentation of the archaeological site of Gordion, and training for archaeology students in the US and Turkey. This research will contribute to a new site management plan for Gordion that includes efforts to protect the numerous threatened burial tumuli and surviving patches of native vegetation, and aims to present the local ecological and archaeological landscapes to visitors. This will improve education of the thousands of Turkish visitors, including many school children, and hundreds of foreign tourists who visit the site every year. As part of the project, Marston will train approximately 20 US undergraduate students in the identification and interpretation of archaeological plant remains, in addition to his own graduate training. The results of this project will be disseminated through publication in refereed journals and conference presentations to the academic community, and through public presentations in the Los Angeles and Philadelphia areas, as well as in Turkey.
