Arboreal crops on the medieval Silk Road: Archaeobotanical studies at Tashbulak

Abstract

During the first millennium A.D., Central Asia was marked by broad networks of exchange and interaction, what many historians collectively refer to as the “Silk Road”. Much of this contact relied on high-elevation mountain valleys, often linking towns and caravanserais through alpine territories. This cultural exchange is thought to have reached a peak in the late first millennium A.D., and these exchange networks fostered the spread of domesticated plants and animals across Eurasia. However, few systematic studies have investigated the cultivated plants that spread along the trans-Eurasian exchange during this time. New archaeobotanical data from the archaeological site of Tashbulak (800–1100 A.D.) in the mountains of Uzbekistan is shedding some light on what crops were being grown and consumed in Central Asia during the medieval period. The archaeobotanical assemblage contains grains and legumes, as well as a wide variety of fruits and nuts, which were likely cultivated at lower elevations and transported to the site. In addition, a number of arboreal fruits may have been collected from the wild or represent cultivated version of species that once grew in the wild shrubby forests of the foothills of southern Central Asia in prehistory. This study examines the spread of crops, notably arboreal crops, across Eurasia and ties together several data sets in order to add to discussions of what plant cultivation looked like in the central region of the Silk Road.

The complex evolutionary history of apricots: Species divergence, gene flow and multiple domestication events

“…Here, ABC analyses based on a larger sample from Eastern Asia could not distinguish between scenarios in which Chinese cultivated apricots would have derive independently from the yellow Central Asian wild genetic cluster or would result from hybridization between this yellow P. armeniaca cluster and the green P. sibirica cluster. Our results are in accordance with historical evidence from the ancient Chinese literature that indicate the cultivation of apricots during the Tang and Song dynasties (739–1,400 ya), which is posterior to our estimates of apricot domestication in China (Chen, ; Zhu, Zhang, Cai, & Wang, ), together with other stone fruits, such as peach (Zheng, Crawford, & Chen, ), almond and cherry (Spengler et al, ). Again, the inferred dates of domestication had very large confidence intervals and should be considered with great caution.…”

“…The ABC analyses further showed that Chinese cultivated apricots represented a third domestication event. In our previous study, we inferred that the Chinese cultivated apricots had originated from the yellow cluster (Q2-4 lineage in Decroocq et al, 2016 is posterior to our estimates of apricot domestication in China (Chen, 2009;Zhu, Zhang, Cai, & Wang, 2016), together with other stone fruits, such as peach (Zheng, Crawford, & Chen, 2014), almond and cherry (Spengler et al, 2018 . In the current study, we also identified an additional genetic cluster of cultivated apricots compared to previous studies, that is, the purple cluster corresponding to cultivated apricots from Xinjiang near-Western Chinese province and Central Asia.…”

The global phylogeny of Plum pox virus is emerging

“…The plum (P. domestica) is widespread in the region but 'The domestication of woody species that do not root easily from cuttings, such as apples, pears and plums, did not come until the discovery of grafting, at least several thousand years later, about the beginning of the first millennium BCE' [89], which is the same date as the TMRCA of PPV. About the same time, apricot (P. armeniaca) and peaches (P. persica) came from China [90], where they have been grown since 8000-7500 YBP [91,92]. A recent report [84] of PPV-W at Almaty in south-east Kazahstan is significant, as there is considerable archaeological evidence of domesticated stone fruits being found along overland 'Silk Road' trade routes across Asia [92,93], and they may have been carried by returning armies; Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE) is claimed to have brought apricots home to Greece.…”

“…About the same time, apricot (P. armeniaca) and peaches (P. persica) came from China [90], where they have been grown since 8000-7500 YBP [91,92]. A recent report [84] of PPV-W at Almaty in south-east Kazahstan is significant, as there is considerable archaeological evidence of domesticated stone fruits being found along overland 'Silk Road' trade routes across Asia [92,93], and they may have been carried by returning armies; Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE) is claimed to have brought apricots home to Greece. Nonetheless, despite historical records of these fruits in the gardens of the time and a long history of growing plums in the region, including Bulgaria [94], there is no record of serious disease in stone fruits until 1915.…”

High mitochondrial diversity of domesticated goats persisted among Bronze and Iron Age pastoralists in the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor

“…Human paleogenetic research suggests that the IAMC in the second millennium BC was a distinct conduit for the northward human gene flow from agro-pastoralist communities from the region of Turan, roughly spanning present-day Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan [31]. In subsequent millennia, pastoralist interactions throughout the IAMC are associated with vibrant cultural exchanges, linking economies and cultures across Eurasia, which scholars commonly refer to as the ancient Silk Roads [45,[49][50][51][52][53][54].…”