Compare methods

	Starch Grain Analysis	Archaeobotanical Flotation
Field	Archaeology	Archaeology
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2004	1968
Originator	Developed in paleoethnobotany; systematized by Deborah M. Pearsall and colleagues	Stuart Struever (machine-assisted flotation); systematized by Deborah M. Pearsall
Type	Microbotanical extraction-and-identification pipeline for ancient starch granules	Field-and-laboratory recovery pipeline for charred plant macroremains
Seminal source	Pearsall, D. M. (2015). Paleoethnobotany: A Handbook of Procedures (3rd ed.). Routledge / Left Coast Press. ISBN: 9781611322996	Pearsall, D. M. (2015). Paleoethnobotany: A Handbook of Procedures (3rd ed.). Routledge / Left Coast Press. ISBN: 9781611322996
Aliases	Ancient Starch Analysis, Starch Granule Microfossil Analysis, Archaeological Starch Residue Analysis, Starch Microbotany	Water Flotation, Macrobotanical Flotation Recovery, Paleoethnobotanical Flotation, Light-Fraction Recovery
Related	2	2
Summary	Starch grain analysis recovers and identifies microscopic starch granules preserved on archaeological artifacts and in dental calculus to reconstruct ancient plant use. Many economically important plants — tubers, roots, seeds, and cereals — store energy as starch in granules whose size, shape, hilum position, and surface features can be diagnostic of a plant family, genus, or even species. Because starch can lodge in the use-wear pits of grinding stones, adhere to pottery, settle into sediments, and become trapped in calcified dental plaque, it survives where charred macroremains do not, opening a window onto plants such as manioc, potato, and banana that rarely carbonize. Under polarized light, intact starch shows a characteristic birefringent extinction cross, and identification proceeds by morphometric comparison to modern reference granules, following procedures consolidated in Pearsall's paleoethnobotanical handbook.	Archaeobotanical flotation is the standard recovery technique for charred plant macroremains, separating buoyant carbonized seeds, nutshell, and wood charcoal from archaeological sediment by agitating the soil in water. Because carbonized tissue is light and water-repellent, it rises and overflows into a fine mesh as a 'light fraction,' while denser bone, lithics, and uncharred residue settle as a 'heavy fraction.' The remains are then dried, sorted under low-power magnification, and identified against modern reference collections to reconstruct past diet, agriculture, fuel use, and environment. Machine-assisted water flotation was popularized by Stuart Struever in the late 1960s and systematized for routine paleoethnobotanical practice by Deborah Pearsall, whose handbook codified sampling, processing, and quantification procedures now used worldwide.