Gordon Hillman obituary

Archaeobotanist who was a distinguished researcher into ancient food plants and the history of agricultureWell before the beginnings of farming, people had developed an understanding of how to use the plant world that was detailed and sophisticated. That observation is far less surprising now than it was before the life ’s work of Gordon Hillman, a distinguished researcher into ancient food plants, who has died aged 74.The early 1970s brought Gordon as a young postgraduate to the Turkish village of A şvan, to joinDavid French’s team of archaeologists who were charting patterns of village life that were soon to disappear. Not just the local customs and resources, but even the village of Aşvan itself was about to be engulfed by the Keban hydroelectric dam. Gordon brought to that project his novel approach to “archaeo botany”, the science of studying past crops and their management through recovered plant remains.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Archaeology Agriculture Biology Plants Farming Turkey Syria BBC Source Type: news