The meeting seeks to join together researchers coming from different scientific fields, such as agronomy, anthropology, archaeobotany, genetic, geochemistry, history, linguistic, and textile studies,  and sharing a common interest in cotton. It aims to review the current state of our knowledge on the domestication, the emergence and the diffusion of the cotton plant and its various products – fibres, oil, textiles, etc. –  in order to highlight the recent research, its current issues and future challenges. This first meeting is focusing on cultivated cottons in the Old World, especially the Indian subcontinent, the south-west Asia, the Africa and the Mediterranean regions (Gossypium herbaceum et Gossypium arboreum), while considering studies, methods and protocols developed for American cottons (Gossypium barbadense, Gossypium hirsutum). The large chronological and geographical framework will allow the perception and understanding of long term dynamics that raised cotton from a tropical wild plant to a valuable crop at the heart of the agriculture and economics of the ancient and modern world.

Organisation : Charlène Bouchaud, Vladimir Dabrowski

UMR 7209, Archéozoologie, Archéobotanique, Sociétés, Pratiques, Environnements (AASPE), Sorbonne Universités, Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, CNRS

Contact and information: gossypium@sciencesconf.org

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Abstract