A short history of Lagenaria siceraria (bottle gourd) in the Roman provinces: morphotypes and archaeogenetics

Abstract

Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl. (bottle gourd) is pantropic and displays large variation in fruit and seed shape. Two subspecies are currently recognized: the African L. siceraria ssp. siceraria and the Asian L. siceraria ssp. asiatica. The Asian type of bottle gourd belongs to the earliest domesticated plants in the Americas. In Europe, bottle gourd only appears with some frequency from the Roman period onwards. The paper is the study of ancient DNA (aDNA) and seed morphology of one almost complete bottle gourd fruit from the Roman site of Oedenburg/Biesheim-Kunheim, France (1st century A.D.), and from individual seed finds from the Roman vicus of PetinescaVorderberg, Switzerland (3rd century A.D.), both recovered from waterlogged layers. Width and length measurements of seeds show large variation. Based on the index of width to length, seeds from both sites differ significantly (p \ 0.0001 Mann-Whitney) suggesting that there were different variants present north of the Alps. Genetically, the bottle gourd fruit from Roman Oedenburg/Biesheim-Kunheim and one commercial cultivar L. siceraria cv. 'Herkuleskeule' are of Asian origin as identified by three Asian and African specific chloroplast markers. These results support an early and longlasting presence of the Asian type of domestic bottle gourd in Europe. No chloroplast markers were found in the seeds from Petinesca-Vorderberg. However preserved nuclear high copy 5.8S rDNA fragments correctly matched to Cucurbitaceae, further supporting the evidence for preservation of DNA in waterlogged plant remains.

The bottle gourd genome provides insights into Cucurbitaceae evolution and facilitates mapping of a Papaya ring‐spot virus resistance locus

“…Siceraria and the Asian L. siceraria ssp. Asiatica (Schlumbaum and Vandorpe, 2012). As one of the most ancient crops cultivated by human, bottle gourd is widely grown in the world today, particularly in the East Asian countries (Kistler et al, 2014).…”

Genetic Diversity of South African Bottle Gourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl.] Landraces Revealed by Simple Sequence Repeat Markers

“…Bottle gourd exhibits significant genetic variation with respect to fruit size and shape (Gurcan et al, 2015;Morimoto et al, 2005;Xu et al, 2014;Yetis xir et al, 2008), fruit shell thickness, fruit length and fruit width (Harika et al, 2012;Koffi et al, 2009;Morimoto et al, 2005), and seed morpho types (Decker-Walters et al, 2004;Morimoto et al, 2005;Schlumbaum and Vandorpe, 2012;Yetis xir et al, 2008). This variation is attributed to farmers' longterm selection of the crop, which is often driven by specific sociocultural preferences and use, cultural practices, and the environment (Mladenovic et al, 2012).…”

Conhecimentos Ecológicos De Comunidades Tradicionais Ribeirinhas Do Rio São Francisco: Contribuição Aos Processos De Reterritorialização E À Resolução De Conflitos Ambientais

“…A bibliografia indica uma tendência para una origem africana de L. siceraria (Whitaker & Cutler, 1965;Schlumbaum & Vandorpe, 2012) e posterior dispersão e especiação em dois subgrupos: L. siceraria siceraria e L. siceraria asiatica. Registros antigos de Lagenaria no Egito, Tailândia, México, Peru, China (Bose & Som, 1986), Japão (Erickson et al, 2005), Brasil e Índia, além de evidências arqueológicas que sugerem que os humanos domesticaram e usaram estas cabaças até aproximadamente 12000 anos (Yetşir et al, 2008;Langlie et al, 2014).…”