Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) is not one of the founder crops domesticated in Southwest Asia in the early Holocene, but was domesticated in northeast China by 6000 bc. in europe, millet was reported in Early Neolithic contexts formed by 6000 bc, but recent radiocarbon dating of a dozen 'early' grains cast doubt on these claims. Archaeobotanical evidence reveals that millet was common in Europe from the 2nd millennium bc, when major societal and economic transformations took place in the Bronze Age. We conducted an extensive programme of AMS-dating of charred broomcorn millet grains from 75 prehistoric sites in Europe. Our Bayesian model reveals that millet cultivation began in europe at the earliest during the sixteenth century bc, and spread rapidly during the fifteenth/ fourteenth centuries bc. Broomcorn millet succeeds in exceptionally wide range of growing conditions and completes its lifecycle in less than three summer months. Offering an additional harvest and thus surplus food/fodder, it likely was a transformative innovation in European prehistoric agriculture previously based mainly on (winter) cropping of wheat and barley. We provide a new, high-resolution chronological framework for this key agricultural development that likely contributed to far-reaching changes in lifestyle in late 2nd millennium bc europe.

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Summary:A lucky fi nd of 2,572 charred pea (Pisum sativum L.) seeds in a single archaeobotanical sample from the hill fort settlement Hissar near Leskovac represents a unique example in Bronze / Iron Age research in South East Europe. Another mass storage of bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia (L.) Willd.) from the same site and period (Brnjica cultural group, beginning of the Iron Age in the Morava valley) confi rms a long tradition of the city of Leskovac region as a pulse crop production centre in modern Serbia. Both pulse storages were almost pure with small amount of admixture from other crops, mainly cereals, other pulses, such as lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) and broad bean (Vicia faba L.), and oil/fi bre plants. Both pulses were cultivated as main crops and were stored separately.

Summary:The extracts were prepared from the samples of 3,200-year-old charred pea and bitter vetch seeds from the site of Hissar near Leskovac, South Serbia, using two different DNA extraction procedures. We used CTAB method with some modifi cation and obtained low quantity of ancient DNA in comparison with the second method used -commercial available kit. After the extraction, a whole genome amplifi cation using Phi29 DNA polymerase was performed. The amplifi ed DNAs were used for PCR reaction using primers for 26S rDNA gene, which is located on the nuclear genome. The single band corresponding to 26S rDNA fragment from modern relatives was obtained. We conclude that DNA from charred pea and vetch seed can be extracted and used for further archaeobotanical analysis at the molecular level.

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