Modern plant use and garbage disposal practices in an Iranian village were observed in order to provide a framework for the interpretation of plant remains from ancient Malyan, a third millennium B.C. urban center in southern Iran. The ethnoarchaeological model suggested that many carbonized seeds originate in dung cake fuel. By applying this proposition to the archaeobotanical material from Malyan, it was possible to corroborate the evidence provided by the independent charcoal analysis for progressive deforestation during the third millennium.