Miller, Naomi F2023-05-232023-05-232002-11-012016-04-05https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/42420When I was in Southern Iraq in the 1970s, I collected charred woods and seed plant remains from the ancient city of Anshan, today’s Malyan. Although charcoal was plentiful, there were not many compared with other sites in the Near East. But as with those other sites, the seeds I did find included a high proportion of wild and weedy types. Yet Malyan was the capital of an ancient agricultural civilization, where wheat and barley had been cultivated for thousands of years. Why were there so many seeds of wild, nonfood plants? Even the cultigens were hard to explain.All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of scholarly citation, none of this work may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. For information address the University of Pennsylvania Press, 3905 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112.agricultureArchaeological AnthropologyBiological and Physical AnthropologySocial and Cultural AnthropologyArticle