Directly dated broomcorn millet from the northwestern Caucasus: Tracing the Late Bronze Age route into the Russian steppe

Trifonov, Viktor; Shishlina, Natalia; Lebedeva, Elena; Plicht, Johannes van der; Rishko, S. A.

doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.02.004

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…In the north/northwestern Caucasus, the previously dated large deposit of broomcorn millet grain in Guamsky Grot rock shelter southeast of the Azov Sea confirms the presence of millet here at the very end of the 2nd/beginning of the 1st millennium cal bc 52 . The growing stable isotope evidence from pre-and Early-Middle Bronze and Early Iron Age sites (4th-1st millennium bc) in the region indicates that the local pastoralist groups likely adopted millet into their diet at the end of the 2nd millennium bc (the regional turn from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

“…Broomcorn millet grains were recorded at the sites occupied by these groups 80 , which could have served as a medium for the transmission of broomcorn millet further to the west and south. The westward spread could have proceeded up the Danube, through long-established communication and exchange networks via which a number of other goods were distributed, such as metals, amber, and decorative objects 79 [45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57], 81,82 [164-196], 83 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The dates from Guamsky Grot and the presence of broomcorn millet at some Late Bronze Age sites in the northwest Caucasus (Adygea 57 [Table 2]) and the Don River delta (Safyanovo 58 [73]) have been used to suggest that the northward diffusion of the northwest Caucasian Kobyakovo culture (1400/1300–1000 bc ) brought the crop into this region. These communities built permanent domestic structures and cultivated crops 52 , 53 [256], 58 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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New AMS 14C dates track the arrival and spread of broomcorn millet cultivation and agricultural change in prehistoric Europe

Filipović

Meadows

Corso

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

115

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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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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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New AMS 14C dates track the arrival and spread of broomcorn millet cultivation and agricultural change in prehistoric Europe

Filipović

Meadows

Corso

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

115

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“…In contrast, direct dating of macrofossils from central and eastern Europe showed that their previous early Neolithic attributions were incorrect, and they date rather to ~1500 BC (the European Bronze Age) at the earliest ( Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute et al, 2013 ). In the Caucasus, de novo excavations and re-evaluation of earlier reports have resulted in a similarly revised chronology for broomcorn millet, with the earliest firm evidence of the crop at 1200–1000 BC ( Trifonov et al, 2017 ). Systematic archaeobotanical analysis in Central Asia has recovered P. miliaceum from sites dating from ~2200 BC (the Central Asian Bronze Age; Spengler et al, 2014 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic evidence for a western Chinese origin of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum)

et al. 2018

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Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) is a key domesticated cereal that has been associated with the north China centre of agricultural origins. Early archaeobotanical evidence for this crop has generated two major debates. First, its contested presence in pre-7000 cal. BP sites in eastern Europe has admitted the possibility of a western origin. Second, its occurrence in the 7th and 8th millennia cal. BP in diverse regions of northern China is consistent with several possible origin foci, associated with different Neolithic cultures. We used microsatellite and granule-bound starch synthase I (GBSSI) genotype data from 341 landrace samples across Eurasia, including 195 newly genotyped samples from China, to address these questions. A spatially explicit discriminative modelling approach favours an eastern Eurasian origin for the expansion of broomcorn millet. This is consistent with recent archaeobotanical and chronological re-evaluations, and stable isotopic data. The same approach, together with the distribution of GBSSI alleles, is also suggestive that the origin of broomcorn millet expansion was in western China. This second unexpected finding stimulates new questions regarding the ecology of wild millet and vegetation dynamics in China prior to the mid-Holocene domestication of millet. The chronological relationship between population expansion and domestication is unclear, but our analyses are consistent with the western Loess Plateau being at least one region of primary domestication of broomcorn millet. Patterns of genetic variation indicate that this region was the source of populations to the west in Eurasia, which broomcorn probably reached via the Inner Asia Mountain Corridor from the 3rd millennium BC. A secondary westward expansion along the steppe may have taken place from the 2nd millennium BC.

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“…In the Caucasus, several additional direct dates on millet grains should be mentioned (SI appendix tab. S2 ): at Grakliani Gora near Tbilisi, Panicum is dated to 1108–896 cal BC (V. Licheli and P. Biagi); in Guamsky Grot, situated in the northwestern Caucasus, Panicum grains were dated to 1110–908 cal BC 41 ; and in Noname Gora, in Eastern Georgia, millet has been dated to the Iron Age 800–400 cal BC (R. Neef). In addition to our data, these 14C dates confirm Panicum cultivation in the Caucasus during the LBA.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The place of millet in food globalization during Late Prehistory as evidenced by new bioarchaeological data from the Caucasus

Martin

Messager

Bedianashvili

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Two millets, Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica, were domesticated in northern China, around 6000 BC. Although its oldest evidence is in Asia, possible independent domestication of these species in the Caucasus has often been proposed. To verify this hypothesis, a multiproxy research program (Orimil) was designed to detect the first evidence of millet in this region. It included a critical review of the occurrence of archaeological millet in the Caucasus, up to Antiquity; isotopic analyses of human and animal bones and charred grains; and radiocarbon dating of millet grains from archaeological contexts dated from the Early Bronze Age (3500–2500 BC) to the 1st Century BC. The results show that these two cereals were cultivated during the Middle Bronze Age (MBA), around 2000–1800 BC, especially Setaria italica which is the most ancient millet found in Georgia. Isotopic analyses also show a significant enrichment in 13C in human and animal tissues, indicating an increasing C4 plants consumption at the same period. More broadly, our results assert that millet was not present in the Caucasus in the Neolithic period. Its arrival in the region, based on existing data in Eurasia, was from the south, without excluding a possible local domestication of Setaria italica.

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Directly dated broomcorn millet from the northwestern Caucasus: Tracing the Late Bronze Age route into the Russian steppe

Cited by 8 publications

References 18 publications

New AMS 14C dates track the arrival and spread of broomcorn millet cultivation and agricultural change in prehistoric Europe

New AMS 14C dates track the arrival and spread of broomcorn millet cultivation and agricultural change in prehistoric Europe

Genetic evidence for a western Chinese origin of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum)

The place of millet in food globalization during Late Prehistory as evidenced by new bioarchaeological data from the Caucasus

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