The domestication and spread of millet as an arable crop
Millet was grown by farmers both west and east, so until recently it was
unclear who thought of it first. Now research has shown that by 8,000 BC,
common millet (Panicum miliaceum) was a staple crop for early farmers
around China's Yellow River.1H. Lu et al., Earliest
domestication of common millet (Panicum miliaceum) in East Asia extended to
10,000 years ago, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
USA, vol. 106, no. 18 (5 May 2009), pp. 7367-7372. The
earliest millet in Europe is that found impressed in pottery at the Sokoltsy 2
site in Ukraine about 6,300 BC. Though there are earlier dates from Egypt, they
do not match those from China.2H. V. Hunt et al.,
Millets across Eurasia: chronology and context of early records of the genera
Panicum and Setaria from archaeological sites in the Old World,
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, vol. 17 (2008), Suppl 1,
S5–S18. If millet cultivation moved westwards so early,
it would have to pass through regions that farming had not entered. So far the
earliest absolutely dated evidence for wheat and millet from anywhere in the
steppe zone comes from Begash in eastern Kazakhstan - 2300-2100 BC.3M.D. Frachetti et al, Earliest direct evidence for
broomcorn millet and wheat in the central Eurasian steppe region,
Antiquity, vol. 84, no. 326 (December 2010), pp.
993–1010. So was there independent millet domestication
in West and East Asia? Or could the idea have crossed the steppe ahead of
agriculture? Martin Jones and Xinyi Liu ague that it did. They point out that
millet was domesticated in China at least 1,000 years before it became even a
substantial portion of the diet of the farmers of Yangshao. Domestication was a
slow process. Paradoxically millet could have spread with foragers.4M. K. Jones and X.Y. Liu, Origins of agriculture in East
Asia, Science, vol. 324 (2009), pp. 730-731.
Notes
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- H. Lu et al., Earliest domestication of common millet (Panicum miliaceum) in East Asia extended to 10,000 years ago, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, vol. 106, no. 18 (5 May 2009), pp. 7367-7372.
- H. V. Hunt et al., Millets across Eurasia: chronology and context of early records of the genera Panicum and Setaria from archaeological sites in the Old World, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, vol. 17 (2008), Suppl 1, S5–S18.
- M.D. Frachetti et al, Earliest direct evidence for broomcorn millet and wheat in the central Eurasian steppe region, Antiquity, vol. 84, no. 326 (December 2010), pp. 993–1010.
- M. K. Jones and X.Y. Liu, Origins of agriculture in East Asia, Science, vol. 324 (2009), pp. 730-731.
