Third millennium B.C. climate change in Syria highlighted by Carbon stable isotope analysis of 14 C-AMS dated plant remains from Ebla G. Fiorentino a, ⁎, V. Caracuta a , L. Calcagnile b , M. D'Elia b , P. Matthiae d , F. Mavelli c , G. Quarta b a Laboratorio di Archeobotanica, Dipartimento di Beni Culturali, Università degli Studi di Lecce, Via D. Birago 64, 73100 Lecce, Italy b CEDAD, Centro di Datazione e Diagnostica, Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Innovazione, Università di Lecce, Via per Monteroni, 73100, Lecce, Italy c Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari, Via Orabona 4 — 70125 Bari, Italy d Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Archeologiche e Antropologiche dell'Antichità — Sezione di Vicino Oriente, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, Via Palestro 63, 00185 Roma, Italy ABSTRACT ARTICLE INFO Article history: Accepted 25 March 2008 Keywords: Accelerator Mass Spectrometry δ 13 C Radiocarbon Archaeobotanical remains Palaeoclimatology Ebla III millennium B.C. We use AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) techniques for the simultaneous analysis of carbon stable isotopic values and 14 C dating on charred plant remains found in the archaeological site in Ebla (Syria) and propose the diachronic variation in δ 13 C plant values as a possible palaeoclimatic tool. Both anthracological and carpological remains, usually employed in palaeoenvironmental, palaeoagricultural, palaeonutritional and palaeoeconomical reconstructions, are used to study stable carbon isotopic variations in a chronological framework defined through radiocarbon AMS measurements. The results obtained from the samples of the Ebla archaeological site show a chronological correspondence with other climatic reconstructions based on various proxy data available for the Near East and shed new light on the aridity crisis of the III millennium B.C. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Archaeobotanical analysis deals with identifying plant remains in archaeological contexts, leading to interpretations in the fields of palaeoeconomy and palaeoenvironment. In particular, archaeobota- nical analysis in the Near East has focused on identifying the early domestication practices and their evolution (with special emphasis on cereals, legumes, olive, grapevine and fig) (Nesbitt, 1995; Zohary and Hopf, 2000) and on the impact of human activities on the vegetational landscape (Van Zeist and Bakker-Heeres,1984; Van Zeist and Water- bolk-Van Rooijen, 1985; Willcox, 1992, 1999; Willcox and Roitel, 1999; Deckers, 2005). In this region, plant macrofossil remains are preferred also for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, as they are available in larger amounts than pollen and other microscopic remains. Plant macrofossils, found in charred state in archaeological con- texts, have also been used in connection with δ 13 Cplant measure- ments to infer irrigation practices in early crop domestication (Araus et al., 1997, 1999, 2003) or to evaluate palaeoclimate changes in Europe (Vernet et al., 1996; Ferrio et al., 2006). With the purpose of performing δ 13 C analysis, plant remains were preferred to soil organic concentration (Pessenda et al., 1996; Lamb et al., 2004) and other traditional bioarchaeological indicators, such as animal and anthropological bones (Gröcke, 1998; Bocherens et al., 2000; Iacumin et al., 2000; Hedges et al., 2004). In fact, plants directly metabolise Carbon from the atmosphere and the water received (Ghosh and Brand, 2003) and the 13 C absorption during the photo- synthesis is influenced by different environmental parameters: light (Vogel, 1978; Francey et al., 1985; Jackson et al., 1993; Berry et al., 1997), nutrients (Raven and Farquar,1990; von Caemmerer and Evans, 1991; Condon et al., 1992), salinity (Farquar et al., 1989), temperature (O'Leary, 1995; Jedrysek et al., 2003), and water availability (O'Leary, 1995; Stewart et al., 1995; Anderson et al., 1996). In the present work, Carbon isotope analysis is applied to charcoal and seeds from the archaeological site of Ebla (Syria) to reconstruct a succession of past climatic changes in a limited continental area where other proxy data (e.g. pollen or isotope analyses) are not available. The Ebla archaeological site (Fig. 1), characterized by a large amount of archaeobotanical remains (Ascalone et al., in press; Fiorentino et al., in press), has a great potential for this kind of work. Its position, and its geographical and ecological features, make it very sensitive to climatic variations, and its long human history, from the III to the II millennium B.C. and later still, allows to study periods of appreciable climate changes recognized also at a global scale (Caratini et al., 1994; Dalfes et al., 1997; Stager and Mayewski, 1997; Gasse, 2000; Kuper and Kröpelin, 2006). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 266 (2008) 51–58 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 0 832 295540; fax: +39 0 832 295506. E-mail address: girolamo.fiorentino@ateneo.unile.it (G. Fiorentino). 0031-0182/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2008.03.034 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/palaeo