This platform brings together a network of researchers in Italian and Mediterranean archaeobotany and provides an interactive database of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental sites containing microscopic and macroscopic plant remains.

BRAIN proposes a new cooperative way to collect data, inform scholars and work in the research fields of Archaeobotany, Palaeoecology and Botanical-Ecological Conservation.

Mission

BRAIN contains a census of sites that have been scientifically analysed for all types of plant remains, with particular attention to the archaeological sites attributed to the Holocene and throughout the Italian peninsula, including the Republic of San Marino, the islands and neighbouring Mediterranean regions.

Palaeoenvironmental sites, which often contain evidence of human presence and data useful for environmental reconstructions, have also been added. The BRAIN database includes different contexts related to human presence in Italy and close Mediterranean countries:
on-site contexts, that are archaeological sites where human action is evident;
off-sites, including terrestrial, lake and marine cores that reveal anthropogenic traces;
spot records, referring to special contexts from spot samples or material preserved in museums.

In the BRAIN website, when available from the Authors, you can find the location and chrono-cultural phases of sites that have been studied from a botanical point of view by Italian and foreign scientists.

The website deals with one science involving Palynology, Archaeobotany, Palaeoecology, Botany, Archaeology. BRAIN shows what potential this interdisciplinary field has for the purposes of environmental restoration and habitat preservation, and for the South European cultural.

BRAIN is a database on bio-cultural issues and it may be useful for projects dealing with landscape evolution, ethnography and ethnobotany, the application of biology to archaeology, the application of archaeology to ecology, biodiversity and nature conservation: these are among the best tools to develop this multifaceted science.