Mis Saab Arheobotaanikast Eestis?
What Will Be With Archaeobotany In Estonia?

Summary/Abstract: Archaeobotany is a field little known in Estonia. It is related to archaeological study of plant remains and research into the history of the use of plants. The discipline is not taught at Estonian universities and the specialists who work or have worked in this area could be counted on one hand only. At the same time, the increasing number of archaeological investigations and samples that have been taken for archaeobotanical research refer to a certain necessity and opportunities to go further. Archaeobotanical finds are sources for the history of material culture as far as everyday life of people depends on plants as resources for food, raw material and fuel; next to appeasing material needs plants may also have been used for aesthetical and religious purposes. The lists of plants included in the unpublished reports of archaeological excavations are not to be considered as complete results of archaeobotanical research. Excavations are just one part of the investigation aimed at collecting data on which further research work is based. The major scientific archaeobotanical work that relies on the results collected from excavations analyses and interprets this information. Plants are the objects of archaeobotanical investigation with archaeological matrix being the source, and the purpose of the research is to discover details of everyday life and make generalizations about culture. Thus it is a real interdisciplinary research that cannot be pursued isolated but in collaboration with several specialists, various information and concepts. The same could be said for archaeologists as scientists, particularly for those who work with well-preserved and rich findings from medieval towns, for example. Estonian archaeobotany may be considered as being in crisis, because although there are dedicated specialists to do scientific work, they lack opportunities for that. Medieval archaeological material where a great part of archaeobotanical data come from is scientifically little investigated and used in the research of material culture. The criticism of the author about the situation is the criticism of an unemployed graduated archaeobotanist. She considers it not only her personal problem but as the result of the situation in Estonian archaeology and in Estonian science. As the domestic research centre of medieval town archaeology and material culture is lacking, the author proposes, as a solution, collaboration with foreign colleagues, which at the same time would not exclude improved collaboration between domestic archaeologists, historians and specialists who use natural scientific methods in archaeology.

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