FABA-SHAPE · Unveiling the Origins of the Faba Bean by means of Shape and Stable Carbon Isotope Analyses of Archaeological Remains

Unveiling the Origins of the Faba Bean by means of Shape and Stable Carbon Isotope Analyses of Archaeological Remains

Among the staple crops, the faba bean played a major role. Faba has one of the longest established traditions of cultivation; furthermore, it remains a critical resource in many countries and plays an essential role in crop rotation. The thousands of faba beans that are preserved in archaeological contexts from prehistory to the pre-modern era attest to faba’s importance to early sedentary communities in Europe and the Mediterranean. As a protein-rich food, it served as a valuable meat substitute for early farmers as they transitioned from hunting large game to agrarian sustenance. Despite its importance, little is known about the faba bean’s origins. All living varieties are fully domesticated and no extant wild representatives of this species or any closely related species have been found. In the absence of a wild living progenitor, it is difficult to estimate the range of genetic mutations brought about by domestication and adaptation to new environments in the modern landraces. One way to solve the enigma of the faba bean’s origins is to look at the archaeological remains found in the prehistoric villages where hunter-gatherers and early farmers settled and to search for clues about the legume’s original geographical distribution, the ecological requirements of its pre-domesticated forms and the changes induced by geographical isolation and human selection. Tracing the spread of the faba bean from its original centres of domestication is crucial to understanding the impact of adaptation to new ecological settings on morphometric and, indirectly, genetic traits. In this regard, archaeobotany provides the most direct record of some of the key evolutionary changes that plants underwent as part of the domestication process. The project FABA-SHAPE has 5 major Objectives for the project: 1) date the exploitation and development of the faba bean, from the initial collection of the wild type to the early selection of profitable characters (domestication); 2) define the ecological requirements of wild and domesticated types of faba bean; 3) study the agrobiology of early domesticated faba bean; 4) reconstruct the early history and the diffusion of faba bean in the Mediterranean and Europe;5) identify changes induced by the selection of new phenotypes more adapted for new type of environments. Within the context of this project, we will combine the most innovative methods available to archaeobotanists: Climate Modelling, Geometric Morphometry, Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis (also known as Δ13C analysis) and Radiocarbon Dating to investigate the origin of faba bean domestication. The combined use of these methods will allow us to identify the types of faba used by early farmers, to assess the ecological requirements of the primitive forms of faba beans, and to study the routes of dispersal outside the area of its early domestication.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз