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== Further reading ==
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
Hillman's contributions to understanding of ancient diet and food procurement were in five areas:
|+
|Site
|Country
|Period and years cal. BP
|Years excavated
|Publication
|-
|Wadi Kubbaniya
|Egypt
|Late Palaeolithic
|
|Hillman
|-
|Aşvan (Çayboyu, Taşkun Mevkii,
Aşvan Kale and Taşkun Kale)
=== Archaeobotanical methodology ===
|Turkey
In the early 1970s Hillman recognised that traditional crop-processing in the mostly unmechanised village of Asvan led to distinctive, consistent assemblages of crop seeds, chaff and weed seeds that could also be recognised in archaeobotanical samples.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hillman|first=Gordon|date=1973-12|title=Crop Husbandry and Food Production: Modern Basis for the Interpretation of Plant remains|url=https://doi.org/10.2307/3642543|journal=Anatolian Studies|volume=23|pages=241–244|doi=10.2307/3642543|issn=0066-1546}}</ref> Contemporary analysis of archaeobotanical samples by [[Robin Dennell]] and others had recognised this variation, with the implication that ancient seed assemblages could not be treated uncritically as representative of crop use, but had not identified the close association with crop processing stages.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|last=Fuller|first=Dorian Q|title=Routine Activities, Tertiary Refuse, and Labor Organization:: Social Inferences from Everyday Archaeobotany|date=2014|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1814hr4.14|work=Ancient Plants and People|pages=174–217|series=Contemporary Trends in Archaeobotany|publisher=University of Arizona Press|isbn=9780816527106|access-date=2018-08-06|last2=Stevens|first2=Chris|last3=McClatchie|first3=Meriel}}</ref> Further fieldwork by [[Glynis Jones (archaeologist)|Glynis Jones]] in Greece put Hillman's results onto a firmly quantified basis, and this mode of interpretation of plant remains - in terms of crop processing stages such as winnowing and sieving - is now a standard component of archaeobotany, particularly in the Old World.<ref name=":0" /> Many of Hillman's students carried out ethnoarchaeological work, for example Sarah Mason and Mark Nesbitt in Turkey<ref name=":2">{{Citation|last=Mason|first=Sarah|title=Acorns as food in southeast Turkey:: Implications for prehistoric subsistence in Southwest Asia|date=2009|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1cfr8jt.16|work=From Foragers to Farmers|pages=71–85|series=Papers in Honour of Gordon C. Hillman|publisher=Oxbow Books|isbn=9781842173541|access-date=2018-08-06|last2=Nesbitt|first2=Mark}}</ref>, Catherine D'Andrea and Ann Butler in Ethiopia<ref>{{Citation|last=D’Andrea|first=Catherine|title=Ethnoarchaeological Approaches to the Study of Prehistoric Agriculture in the Highlands of Ethiopia|date=1999|url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-6730-8_10|work=The Exploitation of Plant Resources in Ancient Africa|pages=101–122|publisher=Springer US|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-1-4757-6730-8_10|isbn=9781441933164|access-date=2018-08-06|last2=Lyons|first2=Diane|last3=Haile|first3=Mitiku|last4=Butler|first4=Ann}}</ref>, and Leonor Peña-Chocarro and Lydia Zapata in Spain and Morocco<ref>{{Citation|last=Peña-Chocarro|first=Leonor|title=Einkorn (Triticum monococcum L.) cultivation in mountain communities of the western Rif (Morocco):: An ethnoarchaeological project|date=2009|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1cfr8jt.19|work=From Foragers to Farmers|pages=103–111|series=Papers in Honour of Gordon C. Hillman|publisher=Oxbow Books|isbn=9781842173541|access-date=2018-08-06|last2=Peña|first2=Lydia Zapata|last3=Urquijo|first3=Jesús Emilio González|last4=Estévez|first4=Juan José Ibáñez}}</ref>. Other scholars acknowledge his influence, for example in work on wild foods in Turkey by Füsun Ertuğ<ref>{{Citation|last=Ertuğ|first=Füsun|title=Wild plant foods:: Routine dietary supplements or famine foods?|date=2009|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1cfr8jt.15|work=From Foragers to Farmers|pages=64–70|series=Papers in Honour of Gordon C. Hillman|publisher=Oxbow Books|isbn=9781842173541|access-date=2018-08-06}}</ref>, and on crop-processing in India by S.N. Reddy<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Reddy|first=Seetha Narahari|date=1997-06|title=If the Threshing Floor Could Talk: Integration of Agriculture and Pastoralism during the Late Harappan in Gujarat, India|url=https://doi.org/10.1006/jaar.1997.0308|journal=Journal of Anthropological Archaeology|volume=16|issue=2|pages=162–187|doi=10.1006/jaar.1997.0308|issn=0278-4165}}</ref>.
|Late Chalcolithic - Medieval
|1968-1973
Hillman stressed the importance of first-hand knowledge of the ecology of wild food plants. The results of his botanical fieldwork were most fully explored for the site of [[Tell Abu Hureyra|Abu Hureyra]], for which his 1996 paper and 2000 book make extensive use of current day plant distribution to model the availability of wild cereals and other foodstuffs in the [[Epipalaeolithic Near East|Epipalaeolithic]] period.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hillman |first=Gordon |editor-last=Harris |editor-first=David R. |title=The origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism in Eurasia |publisher=UCL Press |date=1996 |pages=159-203 |chapter=Late Pleistocene changes in wild plant-foods available to hunter-gatherers of the northern Fertile Crescent: possible preludes to cereal cultivation |isbn=978-1857285383}}</ref> Hillman also carried out experimental harvesting of wild cereals, leading to highly influential work with the geneticist Stuart Davies on modelling the potential speed of [[wheat]] domestication.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=HILLMAN|first=GORDON C.|last2=DAVIES|first2=M. STUART|date=1990-01|title=6. Domestication rates in wild-type wheats and barley under primitive cultivation|url=https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-8312.1990.tb01611.x|journal=Biological Journal of the Linnean Society|language=en|volume=39|issue=1|pages=39–78|doi=10.1111/j.1095-8312.1990.tb01611.x|issn=0024-4066}}</ref> They concluded that selective pressures meant that morphological domestication in the form of loss rachis fragility could occur within 200 generations, thus 200 years for this annual crop. Current interpretations of archaeological data by [[Dorian Fuller]] and others point instead to a prolonged process of domestication<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fuller|first=D. Q.|date=2007-07-28|title=Contrasting Patterns in Crop Domestication and Domestication Rates: Recent Archaeobotanical Insights from the Old World|url=https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcm048|journal=Annals of Botany|language=en|volume=100|issue=5|pages=903–924|doi=10.1093/aob/mcm048|issn=0305-7364|pmc=PMC2759199|pmid=17495986}}</ref>; nonetheless the debate is framed by the evolutionary theory and field data set out by Hillman and Davies.
|Nesbitt et al. 2017
|-
Difficulty in identifying the fragmented plant remains characteristic of early sites led Hillman to build an excellent seed reference collection. His identification guides often circulated in handwritten and drawn form.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Hillman|first=Gordon|date=2001|title=Archaeology, Percival, and the problems of identifying wheat remains|url=https://ca1-tls.edcdn.com/Special-Issue-3-Wheat-Taxonomy-the-legacy-of-John-Percival.pdf|journal=Linnean Special Issue|volume=3|pages=27-36|via=}}</ref> They were most influential with regard to wheat identification, playing an important part in the development in the 1980s of reliable criteria for identification of wheat chaff, particularly separation of tetraploid and hexaploid free-threshing wheat rachises.<ref name=":1" /> Working with his students, Hillman explored a wide range of identification techniques including tuber and wood anatomy<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1349599/|title=The morphological and anatomical interpretation and identification of charred vegetative parenchymatous plant remains|last=J.G.|first=Hather,|date=1988|website=discovery.ucl.ac.uk|access-date=2018-08-06}}</ref>, [[Infrared spectroscopy|infra-red spectroscopy]] and other forms of chemical analysis<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hillman|first=Gordon|last2=Wales|first2=Sue|last3=McLaren|first3=Frances|last4=Evans|first4=John|last5=Butler|first5=Ann|date=1993|title=Identifying Problematic Remains of Ancient Plant Foods: A Comparison of the Role of Chemical, Histological and Morphological Criteria|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/124756|journal=World Archaeology|volume=25|issue=1|pages=94–121}}</ref>, and morphological criteria<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/69666477|title=Identification guide for Near Eastern grass seeds|last=1961-|first=Nesbitt, Mark,|date=2006|publisher=Institute of Archaeology, University College London|isbn=0905853415|location=London|oclc=69666477}}</ref>.
|Abu Hureyra
|Syria
=== Origins of agriculture in southwest Asia ===
|Epipaleolithic (Natufian) & PPNB
Abu Hureyra
|1972-1973
|
=== Hunter-gatherer diet ===
|-
|Can Hasan III
=== Ancient agriculture ===
|Turkey
Hillman worked on material from many agricultural sites, including Can Hasan III and the Asvan project in Turkey, the PPNB layers of Abu Hureyra in Syria, [[Mycenae]] in Greece<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/10659650|title=Well built Mycenae : the Helleno-British excavations within the citadel at Mycenae, 1959-1969|others=Taylour, William, Lord, 1904-1989,, French, E. B. (Elizabeth Bayard), 1931-, Wardle, K. A.,|isbn=9780856681967|location=Warminster, England|oclc=10659650}}</ref>, and numerous sites in Wales. These were not the main focus of his work, and most of these remain to be fully published, with the exception of the Asvan sites<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/984202694|title=The archaeobotany of Aşvan : environment & cultivation in eastern Anatolia from the Chalcolithic to the Medieval period|last=1961-|first=Nesbitt, Mark,|date=2017|publisher=OXBOW|isbn=9781912090556|location=[Place of publication not identified]|oclc=984202694}}</ref>. Important material such as the [[rye]] finds from Can Hasan III<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hillman|first=Gordon|date=1978-12|title=On the Origins of Domestic Rye—Secale Cereale: the Finds from Aceramic Can Hasan III in Turkey|url=https://doi.org/10.2307/3642748|journal=Anatolian Studies|volume=28|pages=157–174|doi=10.2307/3642748|issn=0066-1546}}</ref> were published in interim or focused reports.
|PPNB
|1969-1970
=== Food remains ===
|French et al., 197X; Hillman, 1978
Two important sets of archaeological food remains came to Hillman's laboratory and sparked his wider interest in ancient food. The stomach contents of [[Lindow Man]] dated to the Iron Age, about 2000 year ago. Analysis by Hillman's student Tim Holden found Hillman collaborated with food scientists Tony Leeds and Peter Ellis at [[King's College London]], leading to nutritional analyses of acorns<ref name=":2" /> and sea club-rush (''Bolboschoenus maritimus'') tubers<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wollstonecroft|first=Michèle M.|last2=Ellis|first2=Peter R.|last3=Hillman|first3=Gordon C.|last4=Fuller|first4=Dorian Q.|date=2008-06-06|title=Advances in plant food processing in the Near Eastern Epipalaeolithic and implications for improved edibility and nutrient bioaccessibility: an experimental assessment of Bolboschoenus maritimus (L.) Palla (sea club-rush)|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00334-008-0162-x|journal=Vegetation History and Archaeobotany|language=en|volume=17|issue=S1|pages=19–27|doi=10.1007/s00334-008-0162-x|issn=0939-6314}}</ref>.
|-
|Killibury Hillfort
== Impact ==
|England
Despite taking early retirement in his mid-fifties, Hillman published over 80 papers (many very long), two co-authored books (''Village on the Euphrates. From foraging to farming at Abu Hureyra'', 2000; ''Wild food'', 2007), and one co-edited book (''Foraging and farming: the evolution of plant exploitation'', 1989).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~tcrndfu/hillman.htm|title=Gordon C. Hillman complete publications list|website=www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk|access-date=2018-08-06}}</ref> He had a major influence on the research infrastructure of archaeobotany, creating large reference collections at the British Institute at Ankara and the Institute of Archaeology, and his reputation raised the profile and credibility of archaeobotany during the critical period of its growth in the 1980s.<ref>{{Citation|last=Harris|first=David R.|title=Gordon Hillman and the development of archaeobotany at and beyond the London Institute of Archaeology|date=2009|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1cfr8jt.8|work=From Foragers to Farmers|pages=1–7|series=Papers in Honour of Gordon C. Hillman|publisher=Oxbow Books|isbn=9781842173541|access-date=2018-08-06}}</ref> Arguably, his greatest impact was manifested through his students, who extended his approach to other time periods and other parts of the world, and are now in senior positions worldwide.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1cfr8jt|title=From Foragers to Farmers: Papers in Honour of Gordon C. Hillman|date=2009|publisher=Oxbow Books|isbn=9781842173541|editor-last=Fairbairn|editor-first=Andrew S.|editor-last2=Weiss|editor-first2=Ehud}}</ref> In addition to his impact on the field of archaeobotany, Hillman was also highly influential in popularising foraging of wild plant foods through his work with Ray Mears.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://blog.raymears.com/2018/07/06/professor-gordon-hillman/|title=Professor Gordon Hillman|date=2018-07-06|work=The Ray Mears & Woodlore Bushcraft Blog|access-date=2018-08-06|language=en-US}}</ref>
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|Carmarthen (Church Street)
|Wales
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|Conway
|Wales
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|Tell Ilbol
|Syria
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|Tell Qaramel
|Syria
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|Capel Eithin, Gaerwen
|Wales
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|Brigg "raft"
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|Pembrey
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|Rifa'at
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|Hendre, Rhuddlan
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|Trelystan, Powys
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|Welsh St. Donats
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|Cefn Graeanog
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|Catsgore
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|Caernarfon
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|Keston
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|Caerleon
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|Lindow Man
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|Biglis, Caldicot & Llandough
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|Breiddin Hillfort
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|Jeitun
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|Wilderspool
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|Wilmington Gravel Pit
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|Usk
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|Dolní Věstonice II
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|Graeanog Ridge
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|Cova Matutano
|Spain
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|Çatalhöyük East
|Turkey
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