A paper recently published in PlosOne showed the potential of GMM to address questions about poppy domestication, based on waterlogged archaeological poppy seeds. These seeds are the most direct and common evidence found on archaeological sites, unlike the capsules, which are rarely recovered. Seeds are therefore probably the only archaeological tool that can provide substantial, diachronic and geographically broad information on the domestication/cultivation process.
Continuer la lecture de « Contribution of GMM to track domesticaiton process »“Cypriot juglet theory”: a review
Based on R.S. Merrillees (1962) paper, many researches have focused on the hypothesis that base-ring juglets produced in Cyprus and found in several location in Eastern Mediterranean at Late Bronze age (LBA, 1650-1350 BCE) would be used for the transport and the trade of the opium.
Continuer la lecture de « “Cypriot juglet theory”: a review »Kiel Conference 2023
The progress of the project was presented to the session 11 of 7th International Conference of the Johanna Mestorf Academy, in Kiel (Germany).
Continuer la lecture de « Kiel Conference 2023 »The “joy plant”, a persistant factoïd
In spite of the doubt argued and presented since the mid-1970s, then 80’s, and even more recently, the idea that the poppy was widely used in the Mesopotamian world is still tenacious.
The opium poppy is of interest to several disciplines (medical, anthropology, geopolitics, etc.) and more particularly its use in medicinal or ritual recipes, since the ancient period in the Near East and in the Mediterranean area. It is precisely to illustrate the thousand-year-old narcotic use of the opium poppy that a factoid is still used today in scientific literature.
Continuer la lecture de « The “joy plant”, a persistant factoïd »Visits to herbaria
As part of the research on the opium poppy, we had the chance to visit two large European herbaria, including that of the Musée national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN), the world’s largest one in term of volume and historical value.
Continuer la lecture de « Visits to herbaria »The IWGP conference in South Bohemia
“The International Work Group for Palaeoethnobotany (IWGP) is the informal and decentral collective of all researchers working in the wide field of palaeoethnobotany”.
Since 1968, an international conference is organized every 3 years. It gives the occasion to keep up to date with the latest research in the field of archaeobotany, to maintain research networks and even to start new collaboration with colleagues coming mainly from Europe but also from all over the world.
Continuer la lecture de « The IWGP conference in South Bohemia »Archaeobotany…what is it ?
Most of the knowledge about plants used by past human societies is based on archaeobotany. This discipline studies the remains of cultivated plants (grains, rachis, glume), seeds/fruits of wild plants and weeds discovered on archaeological sites.
Continuer la lecture de « Archaeobotany…what is it ? »Visit to the Musée de Matière médicale in Paris
Following the reading of a paper (Debue-Barazer et al. 2002) about collections related to the opium poppy in Musée François Tillequin, we organized a small visit in June 2019 to conclude the Fyssen project on a high note. And we were not deceived!
Continuer la lecture de « Visit to the Musée de Matière médicale in Paris »Administrateur de base de données (développeur d’application) (F/H)
During this project, an information system (web interface and database) will be set up. It will include the interfaces of input and consultation of the database. The aim is to built the database structure allowing the storage, the follow-up, the perpetuation and the re-use of the information relating to the dispersal of the opium poppy in the past, by exploiting the data in a GIS software like QGIS.
Deadline of the application: 30/06/2022.
Location: MNHN, Paris (France).
Description: https://recrutement.mnhn.fr/offre-emploi-134.html-o=6
Update: the job is now filled. We look forward to working with Linda Angulo Lopez as of October 1, 2022 !
Opium Poppy

This Carnet aims to present the results of an ongoing research around the origin of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.).
This project began in 2018 with the obtaining of funding from the Fyssen Foundation (coord. A. Salavert, MNHN) and the Agrichange project (coord. F. Antolin, univ. Basel) has laid the foundation for a long-term collaborative project. Two grants have been obtained in 2022, ANR JCJC Poppy (France) and FTC DOPE (Portugal) to pursue this research. The project is based on archaeological material, as well as on a sampling of modern and historical biodiversity conserved in seed banks and herbaria. It uses multidisciplinary analyses – archaeobotany, dating techniques, genomics, geometric morphometrics (GMM), spatial analyses.