Economic Botany 58(Supplement) pp. S125–S134. 2004 q 2004 by The New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx, NY 10458-5126 U.S.A. SMALL-GRAINED WILD GRASSES AS STAPLE FOOD AT THE 23 000-YEAR-OLD SITE OF OHALO II, ISRAEL 1 EHUD WEISS,MORDECHAI E. KISLEV,ORIT SIMCHONI, AND DANI NADEL Weiss, Ehud (MacCurdy Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Anthropology, Peabody Mu- seum, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Faculty of Life Sciences and Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel), Mordechai E. Kislev and Orit Simchoni (Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel), and Dani Nadel (Zinman Insti- tute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel). SMALL-GRAINED WILD GRASSES AS STAPLE FOOD AT THE 23 000-YEAR-OLD SITE OF OHALO II, ISRAEL. Economic Botany 58(Sup- plement):S125–S134, 2004. More than 16 000 grains of small-grained grasses were retrieved at Ohalo II, a submerged 23 000-year-old site on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel. The grains were part of a very large archaeobotanical assemblage, unique for its period and region, as well as its exceptionally good preservation. This paper proposes that these grains were a staple food at Ohalo II, based on several lines of evidence: 1. the large number of grains found; 2. the fact that all grains were fully mature; and 3. ethnographic parallels for the use of small- grained grasses in hunter-gatherers’ societies as well as among present-day agriculturalists. Key Words: Diet; hunter-gatherers; Ohalo II; palaeoethnobotany; small-grained wild grasses; staple food; Upper Palaeolithic. The plant assemblage of the Upper Palaeo- lithic site Ohalo II, Israel (Fig. 1), contains large quantities of charred Gramineae (Poaceae) grains. Wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum C. Koch) (2503 grains) and wild emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides (Ascherson et Graebner) Aaronson) (102 grains) indicate these cereals were an important staple food of the human in- habitants’ diet. An additional 16 000 grains of five other Gramineae were found at the site. These include alkaligrass (Puccinellia sp.) (Fig. 2), brome (Bromus pseudobrachystachys Hor- nug/B. tigridis Boiss. & Noe ¨) (Fig. 3), and blad- der/creeping foxtail (Alopecurus arundinaceus Poiret/A. utriculatus Banks et Solander) (Fig. 4, Table 1). In light of the quantities of these grains at Ohalo II, and the fact that these finds are un- known from other sites of this and later periods, this article addresses the question of the signif- icance of these cereals in the inhabitants’ diet. OHALO II: 23 000-YEAR-OLD HUNTER- GATHERERS’CAMP ON A LAKE-SHORE Ohalo II is a submerged late Upper Palaeo- lithic (locally termed Early Epipalaeolithic) site 1 Received 21 August 2003; accepted 20 November 2003. radiocarbon dated to 23 000 cal BP (Nadel 2002; Nadel, Carmi, and Segal 1995). The site is lo- cated on the southwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret), Rift Valley, Israel (Fig. 1). The hunter-gatherer-fisher camp, which in- cludes the remains of six brush huts, hearths and a human grave, covers more than 2000 m 2 (0.2 hectare). The camp was occupied during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), a period of cold and dry climate when ice sheets covered parts of North America and Europe (Bard et al. 2000; Bar-Mathews, Ayalon, and Kaufman 1997; Ba- ruch and Bottema 1991, 1999). Ohalo II was excavated for three successive seasons (1989–1991) immediately following its discovery, when the water level dropped and much of the site was exposed. The site was re- submerged for several years, rendering field- work difficult. However, in 1999–2001 droughts and heavy pumping from the lake caused a new water level drop, and three additional seasons of excavations were conducted. The archaeological site is situated on the salty Lisan Formation bedrock, at 2212 m below msl (Belitzky and Nadel 2002; Tsatskin and Nadel 2003). The Lisan Formation was created by la- custrine sediments of the salty Lake Lisan,