Grasses are of major importance to archaeobotanists and other scholars who investigate the ecology and subsistence of human populations through much of the Old World. Archaeobotanical studies constantly encounter the carbonised grains of grasses, cultivated and wild, but the vast diversity of wild species that are potentially present has made identification of archaeological material a task fraught with difficulties. Based on years of laboratory study of an extensive reference collection, this book gives expert guidance for the identification and interpretation of grass seeds, focusing on those species which appear in the Near East and Europe. Extensively illustrated by drawings of grains and graphs of morphometric data, this is an unrivalled handbook.