Naomi's Gordion projects

Gordion was the capital of ancient Phrygia and reputed home of King Midas (c. 800 B.C.). Its monuments include the Midas Mound (Tumulus MM), over a hundred smaller burial mounds, and the ancient city of Gordion itself. In 1988 and 1989, excavations directed by Mary M. Voigt concentrated on a deep sounding that uncovered deposits dating between the Late Bronze Age and the Medieval period. This volume includes discussion of the wood charcoal and seed data from those excavations. Substantial supporting documentation of the archaeobotanical remains and the present-day vegetation of the region are duplicated in digital format on the accompanying CD-rom, which also has some attractive photographs of landscape and plants. This book provides detailed discussion of and all the archaeobotanical data supporting Miller, Zeder and Arter (2009), description below.

Miller, Naomi F.
2015 Gordion. In The Archaeology of Food: An Encyclopedia, vol. 1, eds. Mary Beaudry and Karen Metheny, pp. 239-241. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland. [Download pdf]

Marston, John M. and Naomi F. Miller
2014 Intensive Agriculture and Land Use at Roman Gordion, Central Turkey. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany.

Miller, Naomi F.
2011 Managing Predictable Unpredictability: The Question of Agricultural Sustainability at Gordion. In Sustainable Lifeways: Cultural Persistence in an Ever-changing Environment, eds. N.F. Miller, K.M. Moore, and K. Ryan, pp. 310-324. University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia. [Download pdf]

This paper argues that environmental variability has always been a factor in agricultural decision-making in the Sakarya valley. Rather than the current regime concentrating on irrigation agriculture, a more sustainable future would include a diversified base of agriculture, animal husbandry, and ecotourism.

Miller, Naomi F., Melinda A. Zeder, and Susan R. Arter
2009 From Food and Fuel to Farms and Flocks: The Integration of Plant and Animal Remains in the Study of Ancient Agropastoral Economies at Gordion, Turkey. Current Anthropology 50: 915-924.

Patterning in the archaeobiological remains from Gordion, Turkey, provides evidence of a continuum in agropastoral practice. At one end, high ratios of seeds of wild plants vs. cultivated cereal grains (calculated as count/weight) and high proportions of the bones of sheep, goat, and deer are signatures of a subsistence economy focussed on pastoral production. At the other, low wild:cereal ratios along with high proportions of the bones of cattle, pig, and hare indicate an economy more focused on agriculture. The highpoint of agricultural intensification occurs in the Middle Phrygian period, a time of great wealth, but the norm for the region shows shows that the most sustainable land use around the ancient settlement emphasized pastoral production. The signatures for agricultural or pastoral emphasis is remarkably similar to that seen on sites along the Euphrates, as reported in MRPS 1997.

Miller, Naomi F.
2004 Long-Term Vegetation Changes in the Near East. In The Archaeology of Global Change. The Impact of Humans on Their Environment, eds. C.L. Redman, S.R. James, P.R. Fish, and J.D. Rogers, pp. 130-140. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C. [Download pdf]

This chapter includes Gordion in the context of a broader discussion.

Miller, Naomi F.
1999 Seeds, Charcoal and Archaeological Context: Interpreting Ancient Environment and Patterns of Land Use. TÜBA-AR. 2: 15-27. [Download pdf]

Between the Late Bronze Age and the Medieval period, the arboreal vegetation available to the people of Gordion changed. Although they always had access to woodland types, there was a gradual increase in the use of trees of secondary forest (e.g., hawthorn) and riparian types (e.g., willow/poplar).

Ecopark

Erder, Evin, Ayse Gürsan-Salzmann, and Miller, Naomi F.
2013 A Conservation Management Plan for Gordion and Its Environs. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 15 (3-4): 329-347.

Miller, Naomi F.
2018 Historic landscape and site preservation at Gordion, Turkey: an archaeobotanist's perspective. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany.

This paper is explains the evolution of the 'ecopark' project and suggests ways that others can develop similar projects appropriate to their own academic background and personality.

Miller, Naomi F.
2012 Working with Nature to Preserve Site and Landscape at Gordion. In The Archaeology of Phrygian Gordion, Royal City of Midas, ed. C.B. Rose, pp. 243-258. University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia.

This paper explains how an open-air archaeological site is best managed as a kind of specialized garden.

Miller, Naomi F.
2000 Plants in the Service of Archaeological Preservation. Expedition 42(1): 30-36.

Miller, Naomi F. and Kurt Bluemel
1999 Plants and Mudbrick: Preserving the Midas Tumulus at Gordion, Turkey. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 3: 225-237. [pdf on-line]

Learn how we set mudbrick to reduce erosion!

Miller, Naomi F.
1999 Erosion, Biodiversity, and Archaeology: Preserving the Midas Tumulus at Gordion/Erozyon, bioçeşitlilik ve arkeoloji: Gordion'daki Midas Höyüğü'nün Korunması. Arkeoloji ve Sanat 93: 13-17 + plate. [Download pdf; see also Ecopark]

Biodiversity preservation and archaeological conservation are coming together as we develop methods of reducing soil erosion on the Midas Mound (c. 800 B.C., Gordion, Turkey) by getting native plants to thrive on the steep slopes of this 53-m high monument.

Miller, Naomi F.
1998 Archaeobotanists Preserve Midas's Wealth. Anthropology Newsletter 39 (4): 14-15.

Miller, Naomi F.
1994 Some Botanical Considerations for the Conservation and Preservation of Tumulus MM at Gordion. In Anadolu Medeniyetler Müzesi 1993 Yıllığı, Sayı VIII, pp. 181-183. Ankara.

Popular

Miller, Naomi F.
2002 Drawing on the Past, An Archaeologist's Sketchbook. University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia.
To order: call (800) 537-5487 or visit website.

This book includes many of my Gordion watercolors.

Miller, Naomi F. and Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann
2016 Goat to Sweater. [video]

This movie shows how Ayşe and I were able to turn angora goat hair to finished sweaters in about 4 years, from ordering the fiber to knitting it up!

Miller, Naomi F., Kimberly E. Leaman, and Julie Unruh
2006 Serendipity: Secrets of the Mudballs. Expedition 48(3):40-41. And don't miss Mudball: The Movie!

The serendipitous discovery that the default shape of a mudball is biconical inspired research into spindle whorls. It turned out that all things being equal, center-weighted spindle whorls are most suited fibers that need more twist; linen fibers need a lot of twist, and the crimped, scaly fibers of sheep wool need relatively little twist. Early west Asian ceramic spindle whorls are normally biconical. It may be no coincidence, therefore, that our first evidence for spindle whorls roughly coincides with our first evidence for spun fibers, i.e., flax!