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BACKGROUND Vegetatively propagated crops are globally significant in terms of current agricultural production, as well as for understanding the long-term history of early agriculture and plant domestication. Today, significant field crops include sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum), potato (Solanum tuberosum), manioc (Manihot esculenta), bananas and plantains (Musa cvs), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), yams (Dioscorea spp.) and taro (Colocasia esculenta). In comparison with sexually reproduced crops, especially cereals and legumes, the domestication syndrome in vegetatively propagated field crops is poorly defined. AIMS AND SCOPE Here, a range of phenotypic traits potentially comprising a syndrome associated with early domestication of vegetatively propagated field crops is proposed, including: mode of reproduction, yield of edible portion, ease of harvesting, defensive adaptations, timing of production and plant architecture. The archaeobotanical visibility of these syndrome traits is considered with a view to the reconstruction of the geographical and historical pathways of domestication for vegetatively propagated field crops in the past. CONCLUSIONS Although convergent phenotypic traits are identified, none of them are ubiquitous and some are divergent. In contrast to cereals and legumes, several traits seem to represent varying degrees of plastic response to growth environment and practices of cultivation, as opposed to solely morphogenetic 'fixation'.

The authors were first alerted to the presence of cultural material in the creek shores by Paul Vuhu, Ambae West fieldworker at the Vanuatu Cultural Center (VCC). Bedford carried out work on Ambae in 2005 in collaboration with Paul Vuhu, James Garae, then Ambae Eastern Fieldworker at the Vanuatu Cultural Center (VCC) and Andrew Hoffman at the Vanuatu Cultural Center (VCC), Port Vila. Claude Vusi guided us to the initial site and showed us a collection of shards. In 2007, Spriggs and Bedford collaborated with the new fieldworkers in the region, David Boe, Claude Vusi, Lonni Vusi, Ferno Vusi, Oscar Leo and Erickson Mala. We thank landowners Dickinson Vusi and Matthew Tari for allowing us to excavate their land. This research is part of a project funded by the Australian National Research Council (ARC, DP 0556874) focused on studying cultural transformation in northern Vanuatu. Shane Cronin, University of Auckland, provided valuable references and information on Ambae tephrostratigraphy.

Riwi, a limestone cave located in the south central Kimberley, northwest Western Australia, has one of the most accurately dated archaeological sequences in Australia, with human occupation beginning between 46,400 and 44,600 cal bp. Macrobotanical remains are well preserved at the site, particularly in upper stratigraphic units 1 and 2 dated to the late and mid-Holocene, respectively. Macrobotanical materials (excluding wood charcoal) are uncommon in Pleistocene contexts, and direct dating of some of the macrobotanical remains recovered from Pleistocene hearths suggest that they derive from the directly superposed Holocene layers. Analysis of the macrobotanical remains from the Holocene layers reveals a pattern where Aboriginal groups occupying Riwi intermittently between 7,000 years ago and the present principally exploited monsoon rainforest ecosystems for food plants, especially Vitex cf. glabrata. Fruiting times of dominant monsoon rainforest taxa indicate that the site was occupied seasonally, corresponding with periods of rainfall when people were able to move away from rivers and other permanent water sources. Results demonstrate a strong cultural preference for fruits associated with monsoon rainforest—a vegetation type restricted in distribution—highlighting the importance of moisture retaining limestone outcrops in foragers’ subsistence organisation in the south central Kimberley.

Archaeology’s ability to generate long-term datasets of natural and human landscape change positions the discipline as an inter-disciplinary bridge between the social and natural sciences. Using a multi-proxy approach combining archaeological data with