A Disregarded Nobility: The Role and Exploitation of Wild Plants in North Africa during the Holocene, Analyzed through an Integrated Functional Analysis on Non-Knapped Stone Tools

The two case study areas presented in this paper - the Haua Fteah cave of Cyrenaica, Libya and the Farafra Oasis in the Egyptian Western Desert - have so far produced archaeobotanical assemblages exclusively made up of wild plants, among which several species of grasses are included. They have also yielded a number of grinding tools. The general assumption of a direct link between grinding tools and plant exploitation was tested, adopting an integrated approach of use-wear and plant micro-residue analysis of the stone tools. Results of this analysis confirmed that a variety of wild plants were processed in the two regions during the Mid-Holocene, showing how these local species represented a primary source of food even after Levantine domesticated animals and plants were introduced into North Africa.