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Reply to: Can a functional ecological model reliably reveal the nature of early plant management in southwest Asia?

Nature Plants volume 9, pages 1964–1967 (2023)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 05 December 2023

replying to G. Willcox Nature Plants https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-023-01573-z (2023)

Weide et al. developed a functional ecological model that distinguishes Levantine grasslands from local arable fields along a function of increasing soil disturbance1. In applying the model to a series of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene sites, we argued that what has been referred to as “pre-domestication cultivation”2,3 cannot be equated with the origins of arable farming in southwest Asia. In his critique, Willcox places doubt on several methodological aspects of the study, including the taphonomic analyses, the identification of charred seeds to ecologically relevant taxonomic levels and the suitability of flowering duration to inform about past disturbance conditions4. Here we reply to his critique and show that the disturbance model is statistically robust and maintains all trends in a re-analysis that excludes species that Willcox identifies as non-weeds.

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Fig. 1: Comparison of the discriminant functions extracted for Çatalhöyük, Dja’de and Jerf el Ahmar using different traits and species combinations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Alexander Weide, John G. Hodgson, Jade Whitlam & Amy Bogaard

  2. Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    John G. Hodgson

Authors
  1. Alexander Weide
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  2. John G. Hodgson
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  3. Jade Whitlam
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  4. Amy Bogaard
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Contributions

A.W. performed the data re-analysis and led the writing process. All authors contributed to the ideas and the final response.

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Correspondence to Alexander Weide.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Plants thanks Anna Maria Mercuri for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Weide, A., Hodgson, J.G., Whitlam, J. et al. Reply to: Can a functional ecological model reliably reveal the nature of early plant management in southwest Asia?. Nat. Plants 9, 1964–1967 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-023-01574-y

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