The East–West Millet Project

Archaeobotany fieldwork in Ukraine

Giedre Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute
PhD candidate, Department of Archaeology

I am currently working on a PhD thesis which explores the questions of when and how domesticated plants came to the European steppe regions. To address these questions, I am conducting excavations and flotation for archaeobotanical samples at a variety of sites in Ukraine and adjacent regions of Russia, in collaboration with Dr Sergei Telizhenko of the Crimean Institute of Archaeology. We have been excavating the following sites:

Zanovskoe
Tuba 5
Novoselovka
Starobelsk
Gard
Pechera
Buran Kaya 4
Razdorskoye

I am particularly interested in the possible corridors taken by millet as it spread across Asia and eastern Europe.

Post-season analysis of samples is conducted in the George Pitt-Rivers Laboratory. Samples are being submitted for AMS dating, and we are carrying out complementary research on modern millet specimens to aid morphological interpretation.

Flotation at the Novoselevka site, eastern Ukraine

Excavation with Dr M.T. Tovkailo at the Gard site, southern Bug river, Ukraine

Excavation at the Novoselevka site, eastern Ukraine

Excavation at the Buran Kaya 4 site in the Crimean peninsula, Ukraine

Weedy form of millet growing in a field of cultivated millet, southwestern Ukraine

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The East–West Millet Project

Archaeobotany fieldwork in Ukraine