This volume celebrates the career of archaebotanist Professor Gordon C. Hillman. Twenty-eight papers cover a wide range of topics reflecting the great influence that Hillman has had in the field of archaeobotany. Many of his favourite research topics are covered, the body of the text being split into four sections: Personal reflections on Professor Hillman's career; archaeobotanical theory and method; ethnoarchaeological and cultural studies; and ancient plant use from sites and regions around the world. The collection demonstrates, as Gordon Hillman believes, that the study of archaebotany is not only valuable, but vital for any study of humanity.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: In honour of Professor Gordon C. Hillman
• Publications of Gordon C. Hillman
• List of Contributors
• List of Reviewers
• Tabula Gratulatoria
• Personal Reflections
  • Chapter 1: Gordon Hillman and the development of archaeobotany at and beyond the London Institute of Archaeology
  • Chapter 2: Gordon Hillman, Abu Hureyra and the development of agriculture
  • Chapter 3: Gordon Hillman’s pioneering influence on Near Eastern archaeobotany, a personal appraisal
• Theory and Method
  • Chapter 4: On the potential for spring sowing in the ancient Near East
  • Chapter 5: Domestication and the dialectic: Archaeobotany and the future of the Neolithic Revolution in the Near East
  • Chapter 6: Agriculture and the development of complex societies: An archaeobotanical agenda
  • Chapter 7: Dormancy and the plough: Weed seed biology as an indicator of agrarian change in the first millennium AD
• Ethnobotany and Experimaent
  • Chapter 8: Wild plant foods: Routine dietary supplements or famine foods?
  • Chapter 9: Acorns as food in southeast Turkey: Implications for prehistoric subsistence in Southwest Asia
  • Chapter 10: Water chestnuts (Trapa natans L.) as controversial plants: Botanical, ethno-historical and archaeological evidence
  • Chapter 11: Evidence of domestication in the Old World grain legumes
  • Chapter 12: Einkorn (Triticum monococcum L.) cultivation in mountain communities of the western Rif (Morocco): An ethnoarchaeological project
  • Chapter 13: The importance and antiquity of frikkeh: A simple snack or a socio-economic indicator of decline and prosperity in the ancient Near East?
  • Chapter 14: The doum palm (Hyphaene thebaica) in South Arabia: Past and present
  • Chapter 15: Harvesting experiments on the clonal helophyte sea club-rush (Bolboschoenus maritimus (L.) Palla): An approach to identifying variables that may have influenced hunter-gatherer resource selection in Late Pleistocene Southwest Asia
  • Chapter 16: Aspects of the archaeology of the Irish keyhole-shaped corn-drying kiln with particular reference to archaeobotanical studies and archaeological experiments
• Archaeobotany
  • Chapter 17: Glimpsing into a hut: The economy and Society of Ohalo II’s inhabitants
  • Chapter 18: Reconstruction of local woodland vegetation and use of firewood at two Epipalaeolithic cave sites in southwest Anatolia (Turkey)
  • Chapter 19: Vegetation and subsistence of the Epipalaeolithic in Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt: Charcoal and macro-remains from Masara sites
  • Chapter 20: The uses of Eryngium yuccifolium by Native American people
  • Chapter 21: Bananas: Towards a revised prehistory
  • Chapter 22: The advance of agriculture in the coastal zone of East Asia
  • Chapter 23: Knossos, Crete: Invaders, “sea goers”, or previously “invisible”, the Neolithic plant economy appears fully-fledged in 9,000 BP
  • Chapter 24: Reconstructing the ear morphology of ancient small-grain wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. parvicoccum)
  • Chapter 25: The KHALUB-tree in Mesopotamia: Myth or Reality?
  • Chapter 26: The archaeobotany of cotton (Gossypium sp. L.) in Egypt and Nubia with special reference to Qasr Ibrim, Egyptian Nubia
  • Chapter 27: Questions of continuity: Fodder and fuel use in Bronze Age Egypt
  • Chapter 28: Food and culture: The plant foods from Roman and Islamic Quseir, Egypt