Professor Tom Rocek of the Department of Anthropology recently received a Franklin Research grant from Philadelphia’s American Philosophical Society. The funding will enable research and a pilot project with colleagues from the Czech Republic to test samples excavated from one of Central Europe’s earliest farming communities: the Bylany site.

The 7,000-year-old Bylany site is famous for a very large collection of houses and other structures built in Central Europe at the start of the Neolithic period. The site was excavated in 1990 and materials were analyzed by the Czech excavation team led by Dr. Ivan Pavlů, now retired from the Czech Academy of Sciences. The results gave important clues to the life of these earliest European farmers. The archaeological samples have been archived and curated by the Czech Academy of Sciences.

Rocek visited the site in 1990 and began reconnecting with the country and academic community of his birth. Since then, he has expanded his involvement in Czech archaeology.

The grant will enable a series of tests, including analyses of plant burnt remains, identification of microscopic plant crystals called phytoliths, and radiocarbon dating on several dozen samples excavated from the Bylany site.

The research will help answer whether such archived archaeological samples can offer new insights not accessible 35 years ago. For instance, phytolith studies were in their infancy in the 1990s, and no samples specifically targeting them were collected, so this project will look for them in samples collected for other analyses.  Similarly, radiocarbon dating was more expensive, less precise and less accurate than it is now, and by current standards, relatively few radiocarbon dates have been obtained from the site.   

The information gleaned from the new analyses will be combined and contrasted with the older results to gain a clearer understanding of the lives of the Bylany inhabitants 7,000 years ago.  Of particular interest is how crops were stored, and how radiocarbon dates from food storage features compare with dates from nearby houses.

The intent is to expand this research into a deeper study of the economy and pattern of social relations (sharing or hoarding) among the early agricultural villagers. These new analyses will show the value of archived archaeological collections and provide insights into a fascinating period of prehistory when farming was just appearing on the scene and setting the foundations of the modern world’s economies and societies.