Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 30/1. (2010)
Articles
ARCHAEOBOTANICALANALYSES CARRIED ON MACRO'REMAINS FROM TÁRGU MURE§FRANCISCAN FRIARY (2007 CAMPAIGN) Beatrice Ciutä Systemic Archaeology Institute, Alba Iulia Keywords: macro-remains, cereals, diet, Middle Age The present study displays the results of archaeobotanical analyses carried on the vegetal macro-remains collected during the archaeological campaign of 2007, from the warehouse of the Franciscan Monastery located inside the medieval city of Tárgu Mure§. The results obtained and presented in this study are particularly important because they are the first archaeobotanical data gathered for a site belonging to the Middle Ages period in Romania. Perhaps it was considered that written evidence it is sufficient to reconstruct the diet of medieval populations. But as far as our knowledge goes, no publications that use such sources to reconstruct the diet of populations in the Middle Ages exist (referring to the space of our country). Moreover, the information obtained from the holders of the excavation seems to prove that this archaeological context is one of great importance for the entire Central European space in the Medieval period, because due to the large amount of seeds that have been retrieved at this site, we can have a perspective of the different crops grown by the communities that lived in this period. During the 2007 archaeological campaign, a number of bags with soil samples have been collected from the section C13. This soil contained carbonized remnants that have been used to determine the species of plants that were grown in the Middle Ages in this area. 38 samples of soil, each weighing 40 litres1 were processed. In addition to this, in 2006, 16 samples of soil coming from the same context* 2 have been studied. We have studied a total of 54 samples of soil, each weighing 40 litres. Consequently we can say that in the present case the taxonomical composition of the samples is very clearly shown. Soil samples were processed in the Archaeobotanical Laboratory and the sieves used in the selection process were 1.6 mm and 0.8 mm. Identification of the macro-remains was made using a stereomicroscope and based on their external morphological features.3 ' Quantity is measured in plastic buckets using the litre unit. It is a standard procedure in archaeobotanical studies for weighing archaeological soil samples. 2 Ciutä 2009, 217-224. 3 For identification, Sävulescu etal. 1957, Körber-Grohne 1994 and Renfrew 1973 have been used. For the scientific names of the species see Zohary-Hopf 1988. MARISIA XXX, p. 213-217
