Philippa Ryan

Philippa Ryan
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

PhD

About

63
Publications
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1,188
Citations

Publications

Publications (63)
Article
Perspectives from the recent and ancient past are largely underutilized in modern sustainability or food systems studies. However, information about regional crop histories and land use systems through time can add essential value and context to debates concerning future agricultural strategies and food security. In particular, archaeological and a...
Article
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The date palm, Phoenix dactylifera, has been a cornerstone of Middle Eastern and North African agriculture for millennia. It was first domesticated in the Persian Gulf, and its evolution appears to have been influenced by gene flow from two wild relatives, P. theophrasti, currently restricted to Crete and Turkey, and P. sylvestris, widespread from...
Article
Full-text available
The global biodiversity crisis in agriculture is overlooked compared with that in wild systems. This must change if we are to safeguard domesticated plant diversity and meet global sustainable development and biodiversity goals. In this Perspective, we review tools developed through decades of wild biodiversity conservation and provide a framework...
Article
Full-text available
The global biodiversity crisis in agriculture is overlooked compared with that in wild systems. This must change if we are to safeguard domesticated plant diversity and meet global sustainable development and biodiversity goals. In this Perspective, we review tools developed through decades of wild biodiversity conservation and provide a framework...
Preprint
Enset (Ensete ventricosum, Musaceae) is an important economic crop from Ethiopia which accounts for 20% of the staple diet in Ethiopia today. However, its evolutionary history and spread is poorly understood. Archaeology could provide evidence of past use and contribute to our understanding of its early history, but so far, this has not transpired....
Article
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Societal Impact Statement Plants and agricultural practices are an integral part of human food systems and well‐being. Here, an example of an ethnobotanical research approach is provided to increase our understanding of the relationship between plants and human activities in Madagascar, where the agricultural sector is the local economy basis. This...
Article
Community engagement programmes are increasingly designed into archaeological projects in Sudan, largely prompted by the remit and funding of the Qatar-Sudan Archaeological Project (QSAP; 2013-present). This paper provides a critical reflection on how a British Museum project in northern Sudan instigated, evaluated and modified its community progra...
Article
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Societal impact statement Global yam production is centred on West Africa, but there are significant knowledge gaps about farm‐level diversity across much of the region, and especially in Guinea. Although yam production is increasing in Guinea, in the longer term, varietal diversity and the sustainability of agri‐systems are at risk. Documentation...
Article
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Societal Impact Statement White fonio ( Digitaria exilis [Kippist] Stapf) is an understudied millet crop, indigenous to West Africa and cultivated in the region largely through traditional practices. This species is climate‐resilient, fast‐growing, nutritionally rich, and provides livelihoods and food security to rural communities. Through collabor...
Article
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Societal Impact Statement Agrobiodiversity is central to sustainable farming worldwide. Cultivation, conservation and reintroduction of diverse plant species, including ‘forgotten’ and ‘underutilized’ crops, contribute to global agrobiodiversity, living ecosystems and sustainable food production. Such efforts benefit from traditional and historical...
Chapter
This series presents monographs and conference volumes about contemporary archaeological and historical research in Egypt, Nubia and the Levant, from prehistory until the spread of Islam. Altogether, it is a region in which numerous excavations are carried out and where new insights are continuously gained. They deserve to be presented in more deta...
Article
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Societal Impact Statement Ecosystem services are underpinned by biodiversity, which is rapidly eroding globally, threatening rural livelihoods and culture. Examining the uses of wild edible plants (WEPs) that are important to rural communities gives insight into the value of a biodiverse landscape to local communities. Here, the importance of consi...
Article
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Societal Impact Statement The global success and expansion of a small pool of major crops, including rice, wheat and maize, risks homogenising global agriculture. Focusing on the agriculturally diverse Ethiopian Highlands, this study tested whether farm diversity tends to be lower among farmers who grow more introduced crops. Surprisingly, it was f...
Article
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Across a 1000-km stretch of the River Nile, from the 1st Cataract in southern Egypt to the 4th Cataract in Sudan, many hundreds of drystone walls are located within active channels, on seasonally inundated floodplains or in now-dry Holocene palaeochannel belts. These walls (or river groynes) functioned as flood and flow control structures and are o...
Preprint
Full-text available
27 • Crop diversity plays a major role in underpinning food security. It is especially important to 28 smallholder and subsistence farmers, who often rely on crop diversity for stable and resilient 29 production. Despite this, global expansion of a small pool of major crops and the associated 30 homogenisation of global agricultural systems may dec...
Article
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The food systems and territories of Indigenous Peoples sustain much of the world’s biodiversity, cultivated and wild, through agroecological practices rooted in Indigenous cosmovision and cultural and spiritual values. These food systems have a critical role to play in sustainability transformations but are widely threatened and have received limit...
Article
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Iconographic evidence from Egypt suggests that watermelon pulp was consumed there as a dessert by 4,360 BP. Earlier archaeobotanical evidence comes from seeds from Neolithic settlements in Libya, but whether these were watermelons with sweet pulp or other forms is unknown. We generated genome sequences from 6,000- and 3,300-yr-old seeds from Libya...
Article
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Agricultural practices in northern Sudan have been changing rapidly but remain little documented. In this paper we aim to investigate changes to crops grown in living memory and their uses through interviews with Nubian farmers on the island of Ernetta. By exploring cultivation and crop processing practices, together with associated material cultur...
Preprint
Full-text available
Crop diversity plays a major role in underpinning food security. It is especially important to smallholder and subsistence farmers, who often rely on crop diversity for stable and resilient production. Despite this, global expansion of a small pool of major crops and the associated homogenisation of global agricultural systems may decrease on-farm...
Article
Full-text available
Social Impact Statement Climate change is expected to disproportionately affect sub‐Saharan Africa in the next century, posing a threat to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and deepening food insecurity. To adapt to this threat, more climate‐resilient crops need to be brought into the food system; these may be developed through breeding with c...
Preprint
Full-text available
The date palm ( Phoenix dactylifera ) has been a cornerstone of Middle Eastern and North African agriculture for millennia. It is presumed that date palms were first domesticated in the Persian Gulf and subsequently introduced into North Africa, where their evolution in the latter region appears to have been influenced by gene flow from the wild re...
Article
Chemical and phytolith analyses of well-preserved goat faecal pellets from different strata of the Ramon I Rock Shelter, in the Makhtesh Ramon (Crater) in the Central Negev, Israel, show patterns of seasonal stabling and grazing among nomads from three different periods, the Late Neolithic, the Early Bronze Age, and recent times (ca. 1800 AD to dat...
Research
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Never before has the biosphere, the thin layer of life we call home, been under such intensive and urgent threat. Deforestation rates have soared as we have cleared land to feed ever-more people, global emissions are disrupting the climate system, new pathogens threaten our crops and our health, illegal trade has eradicated entire plant populations...
Article
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Societal Impact Statement Biodiversity is essential to food security and nutrition locally and globally. By reviewing the global state of edible plants and highlighting key neglected and underutilized species (NUS), we attempt to unlock plant food resources and explore the role of fungi, which along with the wealth of traditional knowledge about th...
Book
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Kew’s State of the World’s Plants and Fungi project provides assessments of our current knowledge of the diversity of plants and fungi on Earth, the global threats that they face, and the policies to safeguard them. Produced in conjunction with an international scientific symposium, Kew’s State of the World’s Plants and Fungi sets an important inte...
Article
More than 31,000 useful plant species have been documented to fulfil needs and services for humans or the animals and environment we depend on. Despite this diversity, humans currently satisfy most requirements with surprisingly few plant species; for example, just three crops – rice, wheat and maize – comprise more than 50% of plant derived calori...
Article
This paper presents the results of integrated geoarchaeological and archaeobotanical analyses of desiccated and charred ovicaprid dung pellets from the New Kingdom pharaonic settlement of Amara West (Sudan). These analyses reveal diagnostic phytolithic evidence for considerable variations in plant diet amongst the site’s ovicaprid population. These...
Book
This community-orientated book was created as part of the ‘Nubian agricultural knowledge’ project (2017-2018). The book content, design and structure were discussed and refined in collaboration with the local communities, and both the Arabic and English versions were edited with local school teachers. The book is aimed at adults and older school ch...
Article
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Little is known about the introduction of domesticated crops in Sudan. Substantial early evidence of the cereals wheat and barley has, until recently, been mainly restricted to the post-Neolithic, third millennium BC pre-Kerma site on Sai Island, and prehistoric finds in general are scarce. Interestingly, an analysis of phytoliths from plant deposi...
Poster
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Abstract: Analyses of phytoliths from pillow-like grave deposits and phytoliths and starch from dental calculus from human skeletons from the Early and Middle Neolithic Sudanese cemeteries of Ghaba and R12 provide evidence of exploitation of wild and domesticated grasses. The evidence of wheat and barley from R12 indicates that these domesticated t...
Article
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Nubian agricultural practices are rapidly altering due to infrastructure development, as well as technological and environmental changes. We will discuss changes in cereals grown and crop husbandry over the last century, and how this may help to consider agricultural strategies at archaeological sites. (The paper attached is the extended IWAA8 conf...
Article
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The study of plant exploitation and early use of cereals in Africa has seen over the years a great input from charred and desiccated macrobotanical remains. This paper presents the results of one of the few examples in Africa of microbotanical analyses. Three grave contexts of phytolith-rich deposits and the dental calculus of 20 individuals were a...
Article
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Ankara Çatalhöyük 0 km 300 N The site of Ç atalhöyük occupies a key position within the development of larger settlements in south-west Asia, but the apparent absence of outdoor activity areas has challenged conceptions of social interaction within the site. Where did the inhabitants of this substantial settlement meet together if there were no pub...
Article
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Bioarchaeological studies of animal dung from arid environments provide valuable information on various aspects of life in ancient societies relating to land use and environmental change, and from the Neolithic onwards to the animal husbandry and the use of animals as markers of status and wealth. In this study we present the archaeobotanical analy...
Article
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Evidence for basketry survives at Çatalhöyük as clay imprints and as macroscopically visible silica-skeleton (phytolith) traces. In this paper we discuss the additional information that can be gained when an analysis of technology, uses, and forms is combined with identifi cation and study of distribution of the plant materials used to create the b...
Article
This report presents the results of the first season of renewed excavations at the Late Neolithic and early Aeneolithic site of Monjukli Depe in the Kopet Dag piedmont region of southern Turkmenistan. The project focuses on the microhistories of technological change in a region where change has long been explained on the basis of diffusionist model...

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