J M Marston
Biographic Data
| ID | 21565 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J M Marston |
| GIVEN NAMES | J M |
| FAMILY NAME | Marston |
| SIGNATURE | MARSTON J M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1412-9695 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 269 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 42 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Unlocking the Potential of CRM-based Legacy Archaeobotanical Collections
This article explores the untapped potential of archaeobotanical legacy collections, particularly flotation samples generated by Cultural Resource Management (CRM) projects, to shed new light on past plant use and human – plant interactions. Often underanalyzed or with results found only in difficult-to-access technical reports, these collections reflect methodological compromises shaped by limited funding, time constraints, and fragmented workfl…
Fueling draught power
This study integrates stable isotope, zooarchaeological, and paleopathological analysis with archaeobotanical, textual, ethnographic, and modern zootechnical evidence to explore diachronic trends in cattle management and agricultural practices in Bronze and Iron Age central Anatolia, focusing on the UNESCO World Heritage site of Gordion from the Late Bronze Age to the Middle Phrygian period. Periods of agricultural intensification are linked with…
Wood fuel use in the Predynastic Upper Egypt Nile Valley
Climate, political economy and agriculture in first and second millennia AD Anatolia
Written accounts suggest there were major changes in agricultural practices in Anatolia as the region switched between Roman, Byzantine, Arab and Turkic control, yet archaeological evidence of these changes is offered only on a site-by-site basis. This article presents the first synthesis of archaeobotanical, palynological and zooarchaeological evidence for changes in plant and animal husbandry in Anatolia through the first and second millennia A…
Politics of Resilience and Materialism in Archaeological Explanation
Cultivating the Hills and the Sands
This article investigates how agricultural choices were driven by political, social and environmental conditions in Palestine during the Early Islamic period (c. 636–1099 CE) through the analysis of charred archaeobotanical assemblages from three archaeological sites in the southern Levant. These sites – the coastal urban centres of Ashkelon and Caesarea Maritima, and the large inland village of Neby Zakaria – are situated in different environmen…
Chapter 7. Mapping land use with integrated environmental archaeological datasets
Archaeologists have developed tools to reconstruct the locations of farming and animal herding using ecological and digital modeling of ancient landscapes. The determination of where on a landscape farming and herding took place, however, can remain elusive in environments with evidence for substantial geomorphological and/or ecological change since the period of occupation. Archaeobotanical and geoarchaeological evidence from the site of Gordion…
Crop introductions and agricultural change in Anatolia during the long first millennium ce
Early millet cultivation, subsistence diversity, and wild plant use at Neolithic Anle, Lower Yangtze, China
This study examines the archeological seed assemblage of Anle, a middle Neolithic site located in the Lower Yangtze region, China. The Lower Yangtze is thought to be the origin of domesticated rice and most studies of this region to date have focused on rice domestication and cultivation within its paleoenvironmental setting. In contrast, we highlight here diverse uses of non-rice plant resources. In addition to large quantities of rice remains (…
Urban agricultural economy of the Early Islamic southern Levant
First archaeological identification of nixtamalized maize, from two pit latrines at the ancient Maya site of San Bartolo, Guatemala
Best practices for digitizing a wood slide collection
As herbaria move to digitize their collections, the question remains of how to efficiently digitize collections other than standard herbarium sheets, such as wood slide collections. Beginning in September 2018, the Harvard University Herbaria began a project to image and digitize the wood slides contained in the Bailey-Wetmore Wood Collection. The primary goal of this project was to produce images of the wood tissue that could be used for specime…
Environmental reconstruction and wood use at Late Chalcolithic Çamlıbel Tarlası, Turkey
Agricultural practices at Bronze Age Kaymakçı, western Anatolia
Agropastoral Economies and Land Use in Bronze Age Western Anatolia
The Middle and Late Bronze Ages of western Anatolia (modern Turkey) remains poorly understood in comparison with its Mycenaean and Hittite neighbours, especially in agricultural economies and land use. Kaymakci is the largest Middle and Late Bronze Age citadel excavated to date in western Anatolia and new archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data from the site presented here shed new light on regional agricultural economies and land use. Agricu…
Archaeological Approaches to Agricultural Economies
Hellenistic agricultural economies at Ashkelon, Southern Levant
Ethnobiology After Four Years of Socioecological Violence
Kerkenes and Phrygia
Assessing the Potential of Phytolith Analysis to Investigate Local Environment and Prehistoric Plant Resource Use in Temperate Regions
The archaeological site of Williamson’s Moss, located in north-west England, was excavated in the 1980s as part of an investigation of the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age populations living around the estuary of the River Esk in Cumbria. Recovery of plant remains was generally low, but bulk sediment samples were collected from different contexts as part of a project archive for future analysis. This paper presents the results of new analyse…
Applied archaeobotany of southwest Asia
The experimental identification of nixtamalized maize through starch spherulites
Mentoring is an Intellectual Pillar of Ethnobiology
Ethnobiology relies on community partnerships and relationships between elders or other knowledge keepers and students. Our Society of Ethnobiology, like all academic organizations, has its own issues with discrimination and abuses of power. But more than other academic disciplines, contemporary ethnobiology is practiced with and strengthened by close, respectful working relationships. As such, we offer our thoughts on the lessons ethnobiology br…
Neanderthal plant use and pyrotechnology
Production requires water
Kerkenes is the largest pre-Hellenistic city in Turkey. It covers 2.5 square kilometers and is enclosed by a 7-km-long stone wall. This Iron Age, Phrygian city was well planned, only inhabited for forty to sixty years, and then purposefully destroyed and abandoned. Not only were the city wall and architecture planned but interconnected water management features for the city were also part of how the city was conceived. While some might view the m…
Archaeological markers of agricultural risk management
Modeling wood acquisition strategies from archaeological charcoal remains
Intensive agriculture and land use at Roman Gordion, central Turkey
Archaeological Approaches to Agricultural Economies
The experimental identification of nixtamalized maize through starch spherulites
Neanderthal plant use and pyrotechnology
Agropastoral Economies and Land Use in Bronze Age Western Anatolia
The Middle and Late Bronze Ages of western Anatolia (modern Turkey) remains poorly understood in comparison with its Mycenaean and Hittite neighbours, especially in agricultural economies and land use. Kaymakci is the largest Middle and Late Bronze Age citadel excavated to date in western Anatolia and new archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data from the site presented here shed new light on regional agricultural economies and land use. Agricu…
Modeling the role of fire and cooking in the competitive exclusion of Neanderthals
Rural Agricultural Economies and Military Provisioning at Roman Gordion (Central Turkey)
Roman Gordion, on the Anatolian plateau, is the only excavated rural military settlement in a pacified territory in the Roman East, providing a unique opportunity to investigate the agricultural economy of a permanent Roman garrison. We present combined results of archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological analyses, assessing several hypotheses regarding Roman military provisioning. The garrison adapted its dietary preferences to local agricultural s…
Kara-tepe, Karakalpakstan
This paper reports on the results of archaeological field excavations at the site of Kara-tepe, in the semi-autonomous region of Karakalpakstan in northwestern Uzbekistan. Investigations at the site in 2008–2009 turned up an unusually rich assemblage of remains from a household context. Combined analysis of the household botanical and faunal remains has allowed us to reconstruct the agropastoral practices of local inhabitants in this oasis region…
First archaeological identification of nixtamalized maize, from two pit latrines at the ancient Maya site of San Bartolo, Guatemala
Agricultural Strategies and Political Economy in Ancient Anatolia
Archaeological study of ancient agriculture in the eastern Mediterranean has traditionally focused on what crops were farmed, at what sites, during which periods. Questions about why farmers adopted specific agricultural strategies, however, have been left to historical analysis. Such an approach divorces the study of the actual residues of farming from the cultural and social environments that contextualize the decision-making processes of farme…
Politics of Resilience and Materialism in Archaeological Explanation
Cultivating the Hills and the Sands
This article investigates how agricultural choices were driven by political, social and environmental conditions in Palestine during the Early Islamic period (c. 636–1099 CE) through the analysis of charred archaeobotanical assemblages from three archaeological sites in the southern Levant. These sites – the coastal urban centres of Ashkelon and Caesarea Maritima, and the large inland village of Neby Zakaria – are situated in different environmen…
Crop introductions and agricultural change in Anatolia during the long first millennium ce
Agricultural practices at Bronze Age Kaymakçı, western Anatolia
Hellenistic agricultural economies at Ashkelon, Southern Levant
Early- and middle-Holocene wood exploitation in the Fayum basin, Egypt
The early and middle Holocene of North Africa was a time of dramatic climatic and social change, including rapid shifts in vegetation communities and the introduction of domesticated plants and animals. Recent research from the Fayum basin of Egypt, which holds archaeological evidence for early use of domesticates, aims to place inhabitants of that region within their contemporary environmental setting. We present here results of wood charcoal an…
Agricultural adaptation to highland climate in Iron Age Anatolia
Chapter 7. Mapping land use with integrated environmental archaeological datasets
Archaeologists have developed tools to reconstruct the locations of farming and animal herding using ecological and digital modeling of ancient landscapes. The determination of where on a landscape farming and herding took place, however, can remain elusive in environments with evidence for substantial geomorphological and/or ecological change since the period of occupation. Archaeobotanical and geoarchaeological evidence from the site of Gordion…
Assessing the Potential of Phytolith Analysis to Investigate Local Environment and Prehistoric Plant Resource Use in Temperate Regions
The archaeological site of Williamson’s Moss, located in north-west England, was excavated in the 1980s as part of an investigation of the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age populations living around the estuary of the River Esk in Cumbria. Recovery of plant remains was generally low, but bulk sediment samples were collected from different contexts as part of a project archive for future analysis. This paper presents the results of new analyse…
Scholarly motivations to conduct interdisciplinary climate change research
Early millet cultivation, subsistence diversity, and wild plant use at Neolithic Anle, Lower Yangtze, China
This study examines the archeological seed assemblage of Anle, a middle Neolithic site located in the Lower Yangtze region, China. The Lower Yangtze is thought to be the origin of domesticated rice and most studies of this region to date have focused on rice domestication and cultivation within its paleoenvironmental setting. In contrast, we highlight here diverse uses of non-rice plant resources. In addition to large quantities of rice remains (…
Urban agricultural economy of the Early Islamic southern Levant
Ethnobiology After Four Years of Socioecological Violence
Modeling wood acquisition strategies from archaeological charcoal remains
Archaeological markers of agricultural risk management
Archaeological fuel remains as indicators of ancient west Asian agropastoral and land-use systems
Environmental change, agricultural innovation, and the spread of cotton agriculture in the Old World
Agricultural Strategies and Political Economy in Ancient Anatolia
Archaeological study of ancient agriculture in the eastern Mediterranean has traditionally focused on what crops were farmed, at what sites, during which periods. Questions about why farmers adopted specific agricultural strategies, however, have been left to historical analysis. Such an approach divorces the study of the actual residues of farming from the cultural and social environments that contextualize the decision-making processes of farme…
Intensive agriculture and land use at Roman Gordion, central Turkey
Modeling Resilience and Sustainability in Ancient Agricultural Systems
The reasons why people adopt unsustainable agricultural practices, and the ultimate environmental implications of those practices, remain incompletely understood in the present world. Archaeology, however, offers unique datasets on coincident cultural and ecological change, and their social and environmental effects. This article applies concepts derived from ecological resilience thinking to assess the sustainability of agricultural practices as…
Scholarly motivations to conduct interdisciplinary climate change research
Agricultural adaptation to highland climate in Iron Age Anatolia
Plurality in Ethnobiology
Editorialintolerance and populist extremism in Europe and North America during the worst global migrant crisis since World War II.There is continued violence toward Indigenous peoples and their lands as economic and political pursuits trump local cultural and ecological values.Academic publishing and the production of knowledge are in upheaval as the commercialization of science and commodification of scientific production escalate.Against this b…
Rural Agricultural Economies and Military Provisioning at Roman Gordion (Central Turkey)
Roman Gordion, on the Anatolian plateau, is the only excavated rural military settlement in a pacified territory in the Roman East, providing a unique opportunity to investigate the agricultural economy of a permanent Roman garrison. We present combined results of archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological analyses, assessing several hypotheses regarding Roman military provisioning. The garrison adapted its dietary preferences to local agricultural s…
Early- and middle-Holocene wood exploitation in the Fayum basin, Egypt
The early and middle Holocene of North Africa was a time of dramatic climatic and social change, including rapid shifts in vegetation communities and the introduction of domesticated plants and animals. Recent research from the Fayum basin of Egypt, which holds archaeological evidence for early use of domesticates, aims to place inhabitants of that region within their contemporary environmental setting. We present here results of wood charcoal an…
Kara-tepe, Karakalpakstan
This paper reports on the results of archaeological field excavations at the site of Kara-tepe, in the semi-autonomous region of Karakalpakstan in northwestern Uzbekistan. Investigations at the site in 2008–2009 turned up an unusually rich assemblage of remains from a household context. Combined analysis of the household botanical and faunal remains has allowed us to reconstruct the agropastoral practices of local inhabitants in this oasis region…
Exploring Space, Economy, and Interregional Interaction at a Second-Millennium B.C.E. Citadel in Central Western Anatolia
Current understandings of the archaeology of second-millennium B.C.E. central western Anatolia are enriched by ongoing research at Kaymakci, located in the Marmara Lake basin of the middle Gediz River valley in western Turkey. Discovered during regional survey in 2001, the site offers a critical node of exploration for understanding a previously unexamined period in a well-traversed geography thought to be the core of the Late Bronze Age Seha Riv…
Archaeologies of empire and environment
Publishing in Ethnobiology Letters in 2018
Ethnobiology Letters was launched in 2010 with the goal of providing a free-to-publish, open-access, online venue for short peer-reviewed articles in ethnobiology (Wolverton et al. 2010). Over the course of nine volumes, which comprise 12 issues, published since that date, Ethnobiology Letters has grown and changed, with new editors, authors, and submission categories. We write this editorial to highlight those changes, as well as to report submi…
Modeling the role of fire and cooking in the competitive exclusion of Neanderthals
Kerkenes and Phrygia
Assessing the Potential of Phytolith Analysis to Investigate Local Environment and Prehistoric Plant Resource Use in Temperate Regions
The archaeological site of Williamson’s Moss, located in north-west England, was excavated in the 1980s as part of an investigation of the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age populations living around the estuary of the River Esk in Cumbria. Recovery of plant remains was generally low, but bulk sediment samples were collected from different contexts as part of a project archive for future analysis. This paper presents the results of new analyse…
Applied archaeobotany of southwest Asia
The experimental identification of nixtamalized maize through starch spherulites
Mentoring is an Intellectual Pillar of Ethnobiology
Ethnobiology relies on community partnerships and relationships between elders or other knowledge keepers and students. Our Society of Ethnobiology, like all academic organizations, has its own issues with discrimination and abuses of power. But more than other academic disciplines, contemporary ethnobiology is practiced with and strengthened by close, respectful working relationships. As such, we offer our thoughts on the lessons ethnobiology br…
Neanderthal plant use and pyrotechnology
Production requires water
Kerkenes is the largest pre-Hellenistic city in Turkey. It covers 2.5 square kilometers and is enclosed by a 7-km-long stone wall. This Iron Age, Phrygian city was well planned, only inhabited for forty to sixty years, and then purposefully destroyed and abandoned. Not only were the city wall and architecture planned but interconnected water management features for the city were also part of how the city was conceived. While some might view the m…
Best practices for digitizing a wood slide collection
As herbaria move to digitize their collections, the question remains of how to efficiently digitize collections other than standard herbarium sheets, such as wood slide collections. Beginning in September 2018, the Harvard University Herbaria began a project to image and digitize the wood slides contained in the Bailey-Wetmore Wood Collection. The primary goal of this project was to produce images of the wood tissue that could be used for specime…
Archaeology (34 works) · Geography (34 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (30 works) · Agriculture (24 works) · Biology (20 works) · Ecology (18 works) · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History (13 works) · Archaeology and Historical Studies (13 works) · History (13 works) · Paleoethnobotany (11 works)