Advancing Methodological Integration in Multi-Proxy Archaeobotany: A Case Study from a Submerged Neolithic River System in the Netherlands

Dutch wetlands hold key evidence for the onset of farming, yet plant proxies from levee records outside excavated settlements have been largely underused. This study applies a comparative framework to plant macroremains, pollen, phytoliths and charred herbaceous plant tissues (CHPT) from a levee core to assess wetland suitability for early agriculture. Proxies were sampled from identical horizons, converted to relative depth-wise densities and regrouped into shared ecological and anatomical-taxonomic categories. This scale allows direct comparison by horizon, clarifies taphonomic and depositional influence on the assemblage, and reduces proxy-specific interpretative bias. The core sequence distinguishes four phases: a peat-forming bog/wet heath with little evidence of human activity; rapid clay sedimentation with sparse local plant input; a well-drained upper clay with peaks in cereal-type phytoliths and CHPT indicating managed, repeatedly burned grasslands; an overlying peat/detritus recording drowning and continued burning on emergent patches. High phytolith densities in levels with low macroremains reveal taphonomic loss rather than vegetation absence, refining the timing and character of an agricultural suitability window. Overall, the integrative multi-proxy approach points to an interval in the later fifth to middle fourth millennium BCE during which parts of the levee were periodically suitable for agriculture and subject to human management.