In the area of Environmental Archaeology/Archaeobotany at the Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology of Kiel University, an important tool has recently been established: with the literature database ArchbotLit on the wiki portal of Kiel University, a tool is now provided for specialists, students and interested members of the public in order to inform them about the history of cultivated plants. The database makes archaeobotanical literature on ancient crops accessible, which is otherwise scattered over a large number of international journals and excavation reports, but also in grey literature. The new wiki platform ArchbotLit is a sustainable continuation of the literature-based online database on archaeological remains of cultivated plants, which was developed by Helmut Kroll, Rainer Pasternak (both from Kiel) and Aleksandar Medović (Novi Sad), and includes literature from the years 1981-2004. ArchbotLit enables access to previous entries via online access at Kiel University and is currently successively expanded with new entries from international experts, including members of the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS and of the CRC 1266. This makes the ArchbotLit an important hub in which archaeobotanical literature from the worldwide community is bundled and kept up to date. The database makes it possible, for example, to find the earliest records of spelt for the transition from the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age.

ArchbotLit – LINK: www.wikis.uni-kiel.de/archbotlit/