From barley to buckwheat: plants cultivated in the Eastern Baltic region until the 13th-14th century AD

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ENFor a long time, the Eastern Baltic region was terra incognita within the international literature on cultivated plants. With the intensification of archaeobotanical studies and direct radiocarbon dating of cultivated plant species, the data on the introduction of various crop species in this region have started to accumulate, although they are still scattered in reports and papers in local languages. Therefore, it seems timely to present a synthesis of all existing macrobotanical data. In addition, we present a few AMS radiocarbon dates of directly dated remains of crops, as the primary data for this article. Our review of currently available archaeobotanical material shows that there is no firm evidence to suggest plant cultivation in the Eastern Baltic region during the Neolithic period. The earliest radiocarbon-dated macroremains of Hordeum vulgare come from the middle of the Bronze Age. During the 1st millennium BCE, a much broader spectrum of domestic plants starts to be cultivated, including H. vulgare, Triticum spelta, T. dicoccum, Panicum miliaceum, Pisum sativum, Vicia faba and Camelina sativa. Secale cereale and naked wheats (T. aestivum/durum, T. compactum) are found only from the Roman period onwards. During the Roman and Migration periods, a few sites already have rye and naked wheats as the dominant crop species. However, rye does not start to dominate the broader economy of the Eastern Baltic population until the end of the 1st millennium AD. Linum usitatissimum and Cannabis sativa are poorly represented during the 1st millennium AD; however, they may have been cultivated since the Roman period.Avena sativa was present during the Roman period, unfortunately, the current dataset is too poor to justify speculating on its importance at that time. Finally, crops such as Fagopyrum esculentum, Lens culinaris and few others appear from c. the 13th–14th century AD, completing the array of cultivated plant species until the Columbian crop arrival.