Archaeobotanical studies offer an exciting opportunity to identify innovations and changes in plant production and consumption across space and over time. In this, perhaps the most challenging task is to try and explain why and how plant use changes, that is, to discover the reasons behind its spatial and temporal variation and how it was reflected in other aspects of life in the past. One way of taking on this challenge is to combine archaeobotanical and other forms of archaeological evidence. This lecture will present several cases from across Europe where archaeobotanical data have been examined against the remains of spatial and functional material culture (e.g. structures, tools) in order to investigate how new trends in plant use articulate with the technological innovations seen in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, and explore their possible cause-and-effect relationship. This work has been conducted within the project “Dynamics of plant economies in ancient societies” at the Collaborative Research Centre 1266 of the University of Kiel.