Description
The Maris Nostri Novus Atlas project was carried out by two archaeobotanists, Dr Diego Sabato and Dr Leonor Peña-Chocarro, researchers at the Archaeobiology Laboratory of the Institute of History which is part of the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council). The atlas comprises an extensive assemblage of high-resolution pictures from different angles of seeds and fruits accompanied by an intuitive and simple search system. Entries are organized by size range instead of in traditional alphabetical order so as to facilitate comparing specimens of the same size. A life-size image reference is also included for each sample.
This atlas is a practical guide aimed at facilitating the daily tasks of both specialists and amateurs who need to identify seeds and fruits. It is likewise a key tool serving not only archaeobotany or botany, but related disciplines.
The volume, initiated in 2015 by means of a painstaking photographic catalogue and classification, includes 2,608 specimens (species, subspecies and varieties) forming part of 880 genera and 134 families. Moreover, the assemblage represents approximately 10% of the vascular flora of the Mediterranean.
Descargue una muestra del libro
—
How to cite: Sabato, D., & Peña-Chocarro, L. (2021). Maris Nostri Novus Atlas: Seeds and fruits from the Mediterranean Basin. Ediciones Doce Calles: Aranjuez. ISBN 978-84-9744-348-7
https://youtu.be/PrJ_ENrJNbE
Diego Sabato, PhD is a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of History of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), responsible for designing and constructing the Atlas. He holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Conservation Science from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” (2007 and 2010), and a PhD in Applied Botany from the University of Cagliari, Italy (2015).
His research areas include archaeobotany, charcoal analyses, seed and fruit morphology, the reconstruction of past diets and the study of human-environment interactions. He has conducted fieldwork in several
countries (Italy, Spain, Turkey, Albania and Hungary).
He has participated in several large European projects both in Spain and in Italy (e.g. AGRIWESTMED - Origins and spread of agriculture in the south-western Mediterranean region and MEMOLA - Mediterranean Mountainous Landscapes: a historical approach to cultural heritage based on traditional agrosystems projects). Most of his research has been published in indexed journals and he has participated in many conferences and scientific seminars.
Leonor Peña Chocarro, PhD is a Senior Tenured Scientist at the Institute of History (CSIC) where she coordinates the macro-remains unit of the PSSP Research Group (Paleoeconomía y Subsistencia de las Sociedades Preindustriales).
In 1990 she was awarded by the Spanish Government a 4-year fellowship to carry out her PhD in London, which was
completed in 1995 at the Institute of Archaeology (UCL). She is an expert in plant macro-remains and prehistoric agriculture with special interest in the western Mediterranean region. Her main line of research is the origins and
spread of agriculture in the region through the study of plant remains, although her work has expanded to include later periods. She has been the principal investigator of several research projects, such as the ERC-Advanced Grant AGRIWESTMED, and the CSIC partner of the European MEMOLA project. Moreover, she has been co-PI (together with P. Anderson, CNRS) of the ESF funded project, The dynamics of non-industrial agriculture: 8000 years of resilience of innovation. She has taught in universities of Spain, Italy, and Morocco and has been Visiting Professor at the Italian Universities of Cagliari, Padua and Rome La Sapienza. She is currently teaching archaeobotany for the Master’s Degree programmes of Granada and Huelva Universities. Between 2011 and 2016 she was Deputy Director of the CSIC
Spanish School of History and Archaeology in Rome (Italy).
