ORIGINAL ARTICLE From the field to the hearth: plant remains from Neolithic Croatia (ca. 6000–4000 cal BC) Kelly Reed Received: 12 May 2014 / Accepted: 6 January 2015 / Published online: 24 January 2015 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015 Abstract Until recently the recovery of plant remains in Croatia was rare, resulting in few studies addressing the nature of Neolithic crop cultivation. This paper presents new archaeobotanical data from eleven Neolithic settle- ments in coastal and continental Croatia. Within conti- nental Croatia, three sites dating to the Starc ˇevo culture (early/middle Neolithic; ca. 6000–5300 cal BC) and six to the Sopot culture (late Neolithic; ca. 5300–4000 cal BC) are examined along with two Hvar culture sites (late Neolithic; ca. 4800–4000 cal BC) located along the coast. Different settlement types are included in the study: open air sites, tells and cave sites. From the data collected the most common crops identified were einkorn, emmer, barley, lentil, pea and flax, as well as the fruits Cornus mas (Cornelian cherry) and Physalis alkekengi (Chinese lan- tern), which were particularly dominant in the Sopot cul- ture settlements. By examining formation processes, sieved crop processing products and by-products were identified at six of the sites, suggesting that cereals were processed on a day-to-day basis at the household level. In contrast, the remains from the late Neolithic coastal cave site of Turska Pec ´ suggest two distinct formation processes. At the east- ern side of the cave the plant remains suggest that episodes of dung burning occurred, possibly to clear the cave of excess waste during seasonal habitation of the cave by herders and livestock. Towards the back of the cave, cereal remains and higher charcoal densities may suggest an area used for food preparation or cooking. Keywords Charred macroremains Á Croatia Á Neolithic Á Crop processing Á Dung Á Plant economy Introduction The first domestic crops, originating in southwest Asia, spread into southeast Europe via the Mediterranean islands and Anatolia and reached Greece around 6400 cal BC (Reingruber and Thissen 2009). From here agriculture spread rapidly north overland through central southeast Europe and by sea along the coast before reaching coastal and continental Croatia ca. 6000 cal BC (Bogucki 1996; Chapman and Mu ¨ller 1990; Davison et al. 2006; Foren- baher and Miracle 2005; Forenbaher et al. 2013). The first domestic species to reach southeast Europe are believed to consist of eight ‘founder crops’: Triticum monococcum (einkorn, actually T. monococcum ssp. monococcum), T. dicoccum (emmer, T. turgidum ssp. dicoccum), Hordeum vulgare (barley, H. vulgare ssp. vulgare), Pisum sativum (pea), Lens culinaris (lentil), Cicer arietinum (chickpea), Vicia ervilia (bitter vetch) and Linum usitatissimum (flax) (Zohary 1996; Zohary et al. 2012). However, this ‘crop package’ did not spread in its entirety throughout southeast and central Europe (Colledge et el. 2004, 2005; Colledge and Conolly 2007) and would have been dependant on a number of factors, including local environmental conditions and the mech- anism by which people began cultivating them, such as population movement and/or indigenous adoption; for discussions relating to southeast Europe see Boric ´(2005), Forenbaher and Miracle (2005) and Vlachos (2003). Once established, crop cultivation would have been an intrinsic part of everyday life during the Neolithic; however, few Neolithic studies in Croatia explore this aspect. Communicated by S. Jacomet. K. Reed (&) Department of Engineering, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PJ, UK e-mail: kellyreed@hotmail.co.uk 123 Veget Hist Archaeobot (2015) 24:601–619 DOI 10.1007/s00334-015-0513-3