1 Phytolith Results from Tomb 50, Tel Megiddo K. Wade and John M. Marston Introduction Here we present the analyses of phytolith remains from Tomb 50; a Middle Bronze III tomb from the site of Megiddo, Israel, dated ca.1600-1550 BCE (Cradic 2020). Tomb 50’s phytolith assemblage is unique in that it comes from a sealed, closed tomb context with multiple internments, then resealed and left undisturbed since antiquity (Cradic 2020). It is with this knowledge that the phytolith assemblage is interpreted as largely anthropogenic, reflecting human activities and funerary practices, with some consideration of the taphonomic contributions from the surrounding tomb materials and disturbance. Phytolith studies from sealed tombs are as rare as those contexts themselves, with a few notable exceptions such as the Ayia Sotira Tomb in Greece (Tsartsidou 2017). Previous phytolith analyses conducted at Megiddo include Area K (Gafri and Shahack- Gross 2013, Shahack-Gross, Gafri, and Finkelstein 2009), Area Q (Regev et al. 2015a and b), alongside geoarchaeological studies that incorporate phytoliths in sediment samples (Friesem and Shahack-Gross 2013, Shahack-Gross 2013). These studies focus on samples from the Early Bronze IB in Level J-4 (Friesem and Shahack-Gross 2013), Late Bronze IIB in Level K-7 (Shahack-Gross 2013), the Iron I in Level K-4 (Gafri and Shahack-Gross 2013), and the Iron Age IIA in Area Q (Regev et al. 2015a). Most of these phytolith analyses fall later in time than the phytolith samples from Tomb 50 analyzed here (Toffolo et al. 2014) but are still useful as site-wide perspectives to understand overall plant use in Megiddo. An effort was made to employ analyses and interpretations that align with the specific works of Gafri and Shahack-Gross (2013) and Regev and colleagues (2015a,b), in the hopes of synthesizing our understanding of plant use on a microbotanical scale (see Figures 1 and 2). Interpretations are also made in comparison with those from Tsartsidou’s (2017) phytolith study of the Ayia Sotira Tomb. Ayia Sotira is a Late Bronze Age chamber tomb cemetery located in the northwest Peloponnese of Greece (Smith et al. 2017) and provides insight into funerary practices involving plants across the Mediterranean (Tsartsidou et al. 2017). Research objectives for this analysis include: - establishing the concentrations of phytoliths per sample, normalized by grams of sediment - identifying plants and plant parts represented in the microbotanical record to complement macrobotanical analyses from Tomb 50 - mapping the spatial arrangement of plant concentrations and parts (if any at all) The overall goal of this study is to learn more about the roles of plants in burial practices during the Middle Bronze Age at Megiddo. Multiproxy and interdisciplinary approaches often lead to fuller understanding and interpretations of the past (Namdar et al. 2011, Shillito 2017), and our understanding of plants and plant parts from the microbotanical