Archaeology Terms
Tobacco
One of the things that can be recovered from light fraction flotation samples is seeds. Archaeologists spend a lot of time looking at tiny black things (charred plant remains) under a microscope, hoping to be able to identify the kind of seed. One of the most beautiful seeds that we find, and one of the very tiniest, is from tobacco. These seeds are often about half a mm across, or even smaller, but their distinctive wavy lines on the surface allow us to identify even the tiniest fragment. (Oneota, La Crosse County)