Dr Jade Whitlam

Dr Jade Whitlam
British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow
+44 (0)1865 278261
jade.whitlam@arch.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests

Archaeobotany; archaeology of prehistoric western Asia (Neolithic to Bronze Age); pre-agricultural plant management strategies; early farming communities; origins and spread of agriculture; ethnoarchaeology; weed ecology and stable isotope analysis.

 

Geographic Area

Southwest Asia and Europe

Research Profile

Current Activities

  • British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship: 'Farming before agriculture: investigating variability in plant management and consumption by western Asia’s earliest cultivators'
  • Tell Nebi Mend Archaeobotanical project
  • Archaeobotanical investigations at Etruscan Murlo and Orvieto, Italy
Publications

  • Cutting the Mustard: New Insights Into the Plant Economy of Late Neolithic Tepe Khaleseh (Iran)

    Whitlam, J, Valipour, HR, Charles, M
    July 2020
    |
    Journal article
    |
    Iran
    © 2019, © 2019 British Institute of Persian Studies. Excavations at Tepe Khaleseh, a small-settlement mound in the Zanjan Province of northwest Iran, have uncovered numerous structures dating to the second half of the sixth millennium B.C., including a pottery kiln. The charred plant remains recovered from the site provide evidence for the cultivation of a diverse spectrum of cereals, along with pulses, which are rare at contemporary sites in the region. Analysis of the archaeobotanical assemblage has also permitted a reconstruction of fuel use at the site, with wild mustards identified as having played a key role in the settlement’s fuel economy. The results presented here expand significantly on our understanding of plant management in northern Iran during the Late Neolithic, a period when we see the spread of farming out of the Fertile Crescent and into Eurasia.

  • 'Monumental Myopia': bringing the later prehistoric settlements of southern Siberia into focus

    Hommel, P, Kovaleva, O, Whitlam, J, Amzarakov, P, Pouncett, J, Lim, J, Petrova, N, Gosden, C, Esin, Y
    February 2020
    |
    Journal article
    |
    ANTIQUITY
    Siberia, Minusinsk Basin, prehistoric pastoralist settlement, remote sensing, geophysics, landscape archaeology

  • Pre-agricultural plant management in the uplands of the central Zagros: the archaeobotanical evidence from Sheikh-e Abad

    Whitlam, J, Bogaard, A, Matthews, R, Matthews, W, Mohammadifar, Y, Ilkhani, H, Charles, M
    November 2018
    |
    Journal article
    |
    VEGETATION HISTORY AND ARCHAEOBOTANY
    Southwest Asia, Neolithic, Origins of Agriculture, Wild grasses, Pre-agricultural plant management strategies

  • Farming, inequality, and urbanization: A comparative analysis of late prehistoric northern Mesopotamia and southwestern Germany

    Bogaard, A, Styring, A, Whitlam, J, Fochesato, M, Bowles, S
    January 2018
    |
    Chapter
    |
    Ten Thousand Years of Inequality: The Archaeology of Wealth Differences

  • From Traditional Farming in Morocco to Early Urban Agroecology in Northern Mesopotamia: Combining Present-day Arable Weed Surveys and Crop Isotope Analysis to Reconstruct Past Agrosystems in (Semi-)arid Regions

    Bogaard, A, Styring, A, Ater, M, Hmimsa, Y, Green, L, Stroud, E, Whitlam, J, Diffey, C, Nitsch, E, Charles, M, Jones, G, Hodgson, J
    January 2018
    |
    Journal article
    |
    ENVIRONMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY
    Archaeobotany, stable isotopes, functional plant ecology, agricultural intensity, Bronze Age, Northern Mesopotamia
More