Starch Grain Analysis
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.
Registro de origen
Citas copiadas textualmente del registro de origen del método. No se infiere ninguna verificación a nivel de afirmación de ellas.
- Pearsall, D. M. (2015). Paleoethnobotany: A Handbook of Procedures (3rd ed.). Routledge / Left Coast Press. · ISBN 9781611322996
Afirmaciones curadas
Afirmaciones persistidas en el libro mayor de evidencia, cada una con su propia evaluación.
Esta vista no inventa una evaluación de afirmación si el libro mayor no tiene ninguna.
Métodos relacionados
Generado a partir del grafo de métodos y mostrado como relaciones sugeridas por la máquina; no se infiere ninguna afirmación de evidencia.