ABSTRACT
Archaeologists widely acknowledge the role of ancient landscapes in shaping human settlement and subsistence patterns, community action and cosmology, and political and economic power. Daily practices of landscape creation extend beyond the physicality of place to encompass the embodiment of practice and the negotiation of social identities. The cultivars that typify the Balkan EN are often characterized as a 'crop package' that includes Near Eastern domesticates such as emmer, einkorn, bread wheat, barley, lentil, bitter vetch, chickpea, pea, and flax. Vegetatively reproducing weeds thrive when disturbed and fragmented by human activities such as cultivation and hoeing, which break them apart and encourage them to spread and increase in number. Although the regular cultivation of what seems to be an EN crop package is apparent at many EN Balkan sites, the ways that farmers produced these crops varied enough that farmers could signal affiliation, status, bodily engagement, or other attributes of social identity through their agricultural practices.
