Agrobiodiversity and crop diffusion in Morocco from Antiquity to the early Modern period (8th century BCE - 17th century CE): an archaeobotanical review
Résumé
Over the past millennia, Morocco has undergone a great number of socio-economic changes, its lands having been dominated or occupied in turn or at the same time by Berber, Phoenician, Punic, Mauri, Roman, Arab and Portuguese populations. As elsewhere in the Mediterranean, these socio-economic dynamics have been accompanied by agricultural changes of varying degrees, contributing to the introduction and spread of new plants and practices. From a chronologically and geographically unbalanced corpus of 13 archaeological sites, this paper proposes a general overview of the identified taxa, in order to set out our current knowledge of Moroccan agricultural productions from Antiquity to the early Modern period. A total of 47 cultivated/gathered species are attested by seeds and/or fruits, divided into 8 cereals, 7 pulses, 9 vegetables and condiments, 20 fruit trees, 3 oilseed and textile plants and 1 possibly cultivated grass plant. Greater taxonomic diversity is recorded during the medieval period, which is the most extensively researched. To complete this work, an overview of emerging approaches aimed at better characterizing diversity and agricultural practices (manuring, irrigation) is also proposed.