Open Access Archaeobotanical database

Archaeobotanical database of Eastern Mediterranean and Near Eastern sites

The research project

The archaeobotanical database is part of a research project ( for details follow this ) that investigates the development of prehistoric wild plant floras of the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean. The geographic area ( go to map ) represented in the data, includes Greece, Turkey, Western Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and Northern Egypt. The chronological frame comprises the Chalcolithic period, Bronze and Iron Ages, up to Medieval periods.

The project is established at the Institute of Pre- and Protohistory and Medieval Archaeology at the University of Tübingen (Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte und Archäologie des Mittelalters der Universität Tübingen) and conducted by Simone Riehl.

Financial support has been provided by the Ministry of Arts and Science (Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst, Baden-Württemberg) and the German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).

Archaeobotanical data in the web: the idea of this website

Archaeobotanical data from 250 archaeological sites in the area under investigation have been collected, and will be analysed within an ongoing research project. Part of the data is available for archaeobotanists, archaeologists and other interested groups. Site or taxa related queries can be conducted. Please follow the
database login to become a registered user.

As new data are produced, the database will be updated at regular intervals. Users who wish to be included with their research data are invited to download a sample table ("sample.xls", 20 KByte, MS Excel 2000) with Excel sheets for new data. New data should be sent via an Excel file attachment to
simone.riehl@uni-tuebingen.de.

The archaeological data services at the University of Tübingen

The archaeobotanical database will be part of the University of Tübingen Archaeological Data Services (Archäologie SERVER) including several web-interfaces to access the documentation and research databases of projects in archaeology, archaeometry and related subjects at the University of Tübingen. Since the software of the services is not yet updated to the most recent versions of PHP and MySQL the archaeobotanical database is privately hosted at www.cuminum.de/archaebotany/. After moving from this private site to the server of the University of Tübingen a permanent redirecting page will be set up.

How to use the database

The database is a public service and free of registration fees. To register you need a valid email address.
After registration you will receive your password by email. You login with your login-ID and your password.
It is possible to change the password after the first logging in. After logging in you will arrive at the query page.
A short introduction to the search options is given in the tutorial how to use the database.