Over the last month, Dr Ekta Gupta has conducted research, outreach, and training activities in India related to her field of expertise and ongoing research projects. Activity 1: Title: A New Lens on Past Landscapes: Insights from Geospatial Analysis for Historical and Archaeological Research On Friday, 28th of February, Dr Ekta Gupta was in Sonipat (India)…
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This weekend, Rambla Prim in Barcelona has been buzzing with families and researchers at the 16th Science Festival. We participated in the event with a workshop on cereal cultivation and sustainable food, where children and their families interacted with large-scale reproductions of ancient cereal seeds and performed tasks of sample identification and classification. The activity was very well received, with the participation of about thirty people, including 15 children and their families. The workshop led to the discovery of Archaeobotany: a discipline that is not widely known in the popular imagination of Archaeology but is essential for understanding key aspects of past societies‘ daily life; such as food, agricultural practices, and trade routes. In the introductory phase of the workshop, we compared some of the most consumed cereals today with the wide variety of cereal species that existed in the prehistoric Mediterranean area. Using various graphic and plastic materials (a poster, reproductions of charred seeds, and images on paper), our researchers explained the most relevant aspects of their research methodology. Furthermore, the researchers explained the key aspects of the current research methodology in archaeobotany. They emphasized the collaboration with ancient seed banks (agrogenetics), our experimental cultivations in the Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic…
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