| archaeobotany | (a.k.a. paleobotany, paleoethnobotany) The study of archaeological plant remains.
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| teosinte | Wild Mexican grass, probable ancestor of corn.
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| paleoethnobotany | The study of plant use by both living and prehistoric peoples.
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| paleobotany | Study of fossil plants.
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| paleontology | Study of fossil animals.
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| floral | Plants, botanical materials, in contrast to fauna, or animals.
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| macroscopic | Visible to the naked eye.
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| microscopic | Visible only with magnification.
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| wattle-and-daub | A construction technique that involves standing posts and interwoven horizontal branches (wattle) that are covered in mud (daub) to make a wall.
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| flotation | An archaeological technique for recovering charred plant remains using water and density differences between heavy and light materials in sediments. Dry sediments are stirred into water and the lighter plant remains float to the top.
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| flot | The lighter, carbonized plant remains that "float" in the flotation methods of recovering plant remains.
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| reference collections | Collections of modern plants, animal bones, human skeletal material, and other items to be used in the process of identification of archaeological remains. Prehistoric items are compared to modern to find the closest match.
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| chenopod | A variety of weedy herbs belonging to the goosefoot family, which includes spinach, beets, and pigweed.
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| seed crop | Plants that reproduce sexually by making and dispersing seeds.
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| root crop | Plants that reproduce asexually from shoots or cuttings.
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| scanning electron microscope (SEM) | An electronic (not optical) instrument for very high magnification of microscopic structures. The SEM uses electrons instead of light to form an image.
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| rachis | The stem that connects the grain seed to the main plant stalk in cereals.
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| glume | The husk that covers and protects cereal grains.
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| shattering | Seed dispersal mechanism.
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| Fertile Crescent | The arc-shaped zone of wetter uplands in Southwest Asia that stretches from the Mediterranean coast through the mountains of southeastern Turkey, to the mountains of southwestern Iran. The ancestral homeland of many species that were domesticated.
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| tell | An accumulated mound of occupation debris; man-made living mounds of earth and trash that accumulate from the decomposition of mud brick, common in Southwest Asia and Southeast Europe.
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| parenchymous tissues | Parenchyma is plant storage tissue, commonly found in roots, tubers, rhizomes, and corms.
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| taro | Tropical root crop with slightly toxic potatolike tuber.
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| cassava | Tropical root crop with starchy roots (a.k.a. manioc), source of tapioca.
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| spore | Microscopic gamete of nonflowering plant.
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| pollen | Covering of the gametes of flowering plants released in sexual reproduction.
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| phytoliths | Genus-specific silicate bodies inside plants.
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| diatom | Silicate shells of microscopic algae.
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| starch | Microscopic grains of a complex carbohydrate found in certain species of plants.
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| palynology | The study of pollen from plants for information on species, environment, and climate.
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| arboreal pollen (AP) | Pollen from trees.
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| non-arboreal pollen (NAP) | Pollen from plants other than trees.
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