 OK. Can you hear me? Everything good? First of all, I want to thank Annette, because that was a perfect introduction to my talk. I want to go from there and look at the question of how can we provide and ultimately synthesize archaeological evidence for the theory. But first, I want to emphasize the power of this theory, because it strikes at the heart of the exchange between the Orient and the Occident in terms of knowledge, in terms of ideas, technologies. And it's relevant, as Marcos pointed out, to some of the big questions of social and economic history. Everything from how the Islamic conquest impacted the common person to the topic of Mediterranean trade and production. And in addition, from the perspective of agricultural science, tracing crop diffusion and genetic histories can contribute ultimately to crop improvement. And we can now even exploit ancient DNA from archaeological remains. But to do that, we need to know where to look for useful specimens. And in this, I think Watson's theory can actually be a guide if all the available evidence is exploited. So the problem is that for all its significance, Watson's thesis has been accepted without serious challenge to quote historian Michael Decker. And we heard some of that from Annette as well. So to evaluate, reject, or refine the Islamic Green Revolution, it's necessary to reconstruct the paths and timing of diffusion for each crop on Watson's list, region by region, of the early Islamic empires. And in this, archaeobotany has the pivotal role. And in what follows, I want to propose a methodology for doing so. So the main way that I want to do that is looking at archaeobotanical first finds and studying them for their role in this theory. So when I say a first find, I mean the earliest instance of a species in the archaeobotanical record of a region. And this is different from a new introduction, which is when a species first becomes entrenched in the agriculture of a region. And that itself is not the same as an agricultural revolution, which is when the new crops and techniques not only become entrenched, but their long-term effect impact society at large. And also my geographical focus here will be at Levant, Belada Sham. And the theory behind the methodology that I want to propose is simple. First finds may indicate new introductions, but not necessarily. And new introductions may comprise an agricultural revolution, but not necessarily. So that being the case, first finds are a first step in identifying agricultural revolution. Watson did it with first finds from historical texts. Maybe he didn't look at all the texts he should have. But now it's time to do it with archaeobotanical first finds. Now, I started thinking about how to interpret archaeobotanical first friends after a colleague, Oriam Ikhai, a master's student at Professor Ehudweiss's. Oh, you guys are some. That's strange. OK. That's strange. Would change maybe push there. No, wait. Oh, whatever. We can be clear about it. Whatever. So she found several first finds for archaeobotanical Levant in an assemblage from an abasadira assemblage from Jerusalem. And we were sure that at least one of them was a new introduction for the Islamic period. But how could we prove it? If absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, how can we ever be sure that we have a new introduction in hand? So to overcome that problem, I came up with five criteria that some of them will be familiar from Annette's talk. And actually, I think a lot of times archaeobotanists and archaeologists in general use them instinctively. But as far as I know, they've never been laid out in a systematic methodology. So this is my contribution to critically evaluating the Islamic Green Revolution. And I really hope you'll have challenging questions and comments during the discussion slide for me. So this is my five point checklist. And before I go through them, I just want to say that each point is a necessary criterion. So a problem in any one of these would undermine the interpretation of the first fine as an introduction. So criteria number one, tephonomy. Tephonomy must be ruled out as an explanation for the plant remains first fine status. Tephonomy refers to the processes that undergo an organism, in this case a plant for me, after it's death. And if we had a case of unique preservation and that's our first fine, then we would question whether the first fine is due to unique preservation or actually being a new introduction. So to overcome that, if we find other examples of that species preserved in later contexts under normal preservation conditions, then that would be good. Or if we found close taxonomic relatives in earlier assemblages that would also overcome that issue. Criterion number two, sampling and discovery. Discovery of the first fine in question must not be attributable to superior sampling recovery strategies. So small seeds are often missed in the core sieves of archaeologists and may not be identified. So it's important to have archaeobacterial assemblages for comparison that have been systematically sifted for plant remains. And if your site is the first of the region in which that's done, you're going to have a lot of first fines, but not necessarily going to be new introductions. Identification and dating. Absence in earlier assemblages must not be due to the lack of taxonomic resolution of identification. Criterion number three, and this is sometimes the first thing that needs to be done is that you have an adequate reference collection to securely identify the fines. This is our reference collection with Professor Ewe Weiss and Dr. Yulma Named in Bailan. And this reference collection is geared specifically towards the southern event with basically full coverage. And also dating needs to be secure. Criterion number four, geographic significance. This involves defining the geographic region broadly enough so that it has meaning. If I say, for the first time I found, I don't know what, hard wheat in Catalonia, or in Barcelona itself, then that's not so significant. Maybe you need to look beyond. And not only so, in my case, it would be the Levant, which is a broad enough geographical region. But it's also important to take into account neighboring regions as well. And also to infer the direction of diffusion. So if we're talking about an east-west diffusion, and we found an earlier example of the crop westward of the Levant, then that would rule out the possibility of a new introduction in the Levant at that time. Criterion number five, there needs to exist a sufficiently large database for comparison over the long term and over other over relevant geographic regions for comparison. This is a work in progress, but today there's dozens of archivotanical assemblages that have been studied from the pre-Islamic period in the Levant, from Roman Byzantine periods. So it's enough to start to synthesize and compare results from early Islamic times. So to apply this methodology, I'm using the Givati assemblage as a test case. It used to be a parking lot in the old city of Jerusalem. And now it's an archaeological site. This is Orián of Chai, who worked on the archivotanical remains. And this is a cespid from the site, which is one of the unique features of the site, which I mentioned was also was excavated by Doron Ben-Ami of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The site is unique in several ways. It's an Abbasid-era archivotanical assemblage, which is very rare in the Levant. It's archaeologically identified as a marketplace. And its main feature are cespids and refuse pits, which archaeologically is also extremely rare in our region. And it's pretty much whole-scale preservation by mineralization of archivotanical remains, which is also unprecedented. And here in the picture on the left is the archivotanical remains. And on the right is modern apple seeds. So you can see the quality of the preservation. But the type of preservation is very rare for an entire assemblage in the Levant. And perhaps owing to these unique circumstances of context and preservation, several rare species were found, including four first finds for Levantine archaeobotan. And these are those first finds of the aubergine, black mulberry, raddish, and the wild species chlamy plantain. I'm going to go through them one by one, looking at the methodological criteria that I laid out before. So the research question is, do these first finds from the Givati assemblage represent new introductions into the Levant? Or is their first find status due to unique conditions of preservation in context? So to start with the aubergine, taphonomically speaking, earlier finds of the Solanum genus have been found in the Levant, suggesting that preservation isn't an issue. The aubergine should also have been found had it been there. Sampling and recovery, the seeds are rather, say, medium-sized for archivotanical remains, about three millimeters in diameter. So it would have been noticeable in most archivotanical assemblages. Identification is secure, diagnostic. All the contexts from Givati are securely abacid. So no issue there. And geographically, we're looking at an East Asian Center of Domestication, so that fits in with the East-West diffusion of Watson's theory. And in our database, to date, of dozens of Roman Byzantine sites, there are no previous aubergine finds whether in the Levant or west of it, as far as I know. So archivotanically, it's a good candidate for near-introduction status. The black mulberry is not so simple. First of all, taphonomically speaking, there may be limited opportunities for archivotanical deposition. It has short growing season. Fruits don't preserve well, not usually cooked. So it may not make it to the site in the first place. Not enough to rule out, but it raises questions. In terms of sampling and recovery, the seeds are large enough, so that's not an issue. Has indicative morphology to the extent that we can distinguish between black and white mulberry, which is important because the black mulberry has grown from millennia in Persia. But the white mulberry is a candidate for East Asian Islamic introduction in the Islamic period, even though Watson didn't mention that, but it may be part of an early Islamic textile revolution. And the kicker here is a database for comparison. There is one previous find of black mulberry from Egypt, so no new introduction there. Radish, taphonomically speaking, not an issue. Wild radishes are common in Levantine archivotanical assemblages. Sampling and recovery seeds are the same size, so they should be seen, should be found. Identification and dating, we know how to distinguish. Identify them, no problem. But geographically speaking, wild progenitors of Radish are extant in Levantine, and genomic studies suggest independent domestication in Europe and Asia. So there's no reason to assume that Radish would have been introduced from abroad. And in our database, we find earlier finds from Egypt. So that's also a no-go. Clamiplantane, wild, taphonomically speaking, we find it's relatives, not a problem. Sampling and recovery is OK, pretty, again, same size as the others. However, plantago afra-clamiplanting types were previously identified in prehistoric sites. So although not definitively identified, it suggests that perhaps they may have been there. So that's enough to cause an issue. And geographically speaking, it is a common wild plant in Levantine, so there's no reason why it would be a new introduction. And the kicker is that since the Givati excavations, another much earlier instance of plantago afra was found in Yaron's Cave in Israel. So it's no longer, it was a first for Levantine acrobotany, but no longer the earliest. So that's out. And to summarize these results using historical sources, the aubergine is a good acupotanical candidate, and historical sources agree with that early Islamic introduction. Black mulberry, not an acupotanical candidate, and historical sources also suggest that it reached the Levant much earlier, at least in Hellenistic times. Radish, not an acupotanical candidate, and it's mentioned in earlier historical sources. And the same goes for planting, planting. So to wrap this up and go back to the theory, recall the relationship between first finds, new introductions, and agricultural revolution. So here, we've shown that first finds are not necessarily new introductions of four first finds. Only one was the aubergine, and we think it was an early Islamic introduction. But more importantly, the methodological criteria proposed here can help us identify new introductions. And this is important because identifying new introductions from archipotanical first finds is a necessary first step in evaluating the Islamic Green Revolution. So that will help us in the future, I hope, to chart the diffusion of the crops relevant to the Islamic Green Revolution, crop by crop, and region by region. And once we have that multi-regional map of diffusion, it won't only help us evaluate the Islamic Green Revolution, but will also help us advance research in archipotany, archeogenetics, and maybe even crop science. So I want to acknowledge all those who helped make this presentation possible. And thank you for listening.