About plant species identifiend in the archaeological sites of Gumelnița from Bărăgan

The social and economic development of the Eneolithic communities of the Lower Danube was fundamentally conditioned by the practice of agriculture, as evidenced by the diversity of seeds from different plants that have been discovered and studied, especially in recent years. Interdisciplinary studies, such as carpology or palynology, have greatly helped in the process of trying to reconstruct the diet of people of Gumelnița. The presence of carpological material in archaeological deposits provides important evidence of the cultivation and harvesting processes that humans carried out thousands of years ago. In this material we aimed to present the main results of the carpentological studies carried out for several sites of Gumelnița from Bărăgan, from a taxonomic and quantitative perspective. From our analysis, among the plants that were consumed by the populations of the Gumelnița culture in Bărăgan, we identified cereals such as wheat (Triticum sp.), barley (Hordeum sp.) or rye (Secale cereale ), which were present in most settlements of Gumelnița. In the case of wheat, we have found its presence in small quantities in terms of number of seeds and mixed with seeds from other plants, but there are also instances of sites where they are the majority, such as the settlements of Vlădiceasca -"Ghergălăul Mare" or Bordușani -"Popină". Barley is the majority in sites such as "Măgura Gumelnița" or Vărăști -"Grădiștea Ulmilor". Legumes are present in the form of vetch seeds, peas, wild peas or lentils. In the site of Căscioarele -"Ostrovel" vetch seeds exceed 90% of the total seeds analyzed. From the category of segetal and ruderal plants, wild spinach is present in large quantities at the Sultana -"Malu Roșu" site.