Saharan exploitation of plants 8,000 years BP

Differentially Regulated Orthologs in Sorghum and the Subgenomes of Maize

“…After 1 d of cold stress, the species could be broadly classified as either cold stress insensitive or cold stress sensitive, with both maize and sorghum in the cold stress sensitive category. A longer period of cold stress (3 d) revealed greater impairment of CO 2 assimilation rates in sorghum than in maize, consistent with previous reports on the relative cold sensitivity of these two species (Chinnusamy et al, 2007;Chopra et al, 2017;Fiedler et al, 2016;Hetherington et al, 1989;Wendorf et al, 1992) and separated the six species into three broad categories of cold tolerant, moderately cold sensitive and extremely cold sensitive. Based on these data, we selected one day of cold stress, when maize and sorghum still exhibit comparable levels of CO 2 assimilation impairment ( Figure 2D), for downstream expression analysis.…”

“…Cold was selected as a stress that could be delivered in a consistent fashion and time frame. Maize and sorghum were selected based on their close evolutionary relationship (Swigonová et al, 2004), high-quality sequenced genomes (Paterson et al, 2009;Schnable et al, 2009), and common susceptibility to cold stress (Chinnusamy et al, 2007;Hetherington et al, 1989;Wendorf et al, 1992). In addition, maize is a mesotetraploid species that experienced a whole-genome duplication ;12 million years ago after its divergence from sorghum (Swigonová et al, 2004), producing two functionally distinct maize subgenomes, maize1 and maize2 (Schnable et al, 2011).…”

Ethnolinguistic structuring of sorghum genetic diversity in Africa and the role of local seed systems

“…The grain crop has played a fundamental role in adaptation to environmental change in the Sahel since the early Holocene, when the Sahara desert was a green homeland for Nilo-Saharan groups pursuing livelihoods based on hunting or herding of cattle and wild grain collecting (3,4). The earliest archaeological evidence of human sorghum use is dated 9100-8900 B.P., and the seeds were excavated together with cattle bones, lithic artifacts, and pottery from a site close to the current border between Egypt and Sudan (5,6). The timing of the domestication of cattle and sorghum remains contested due to limited archaeological evidence, but, at some point, the livelihoods in this region transformed from hunting and gathering into agropastoralism.…”

Mappae Mundi : Humans and their Habitats in a Long-Term Socio-Ecological Perspective, Myths, Maps and Models

“…Archaeological investigations from the Egyptian Sahara have unearthed settled houses with hearths and cooking holes that were occupied about 8000 yr BP. Associated with these are the remains of some 40 plant species (Wendorf 1992). These indicate that the North African plant-food complex developed independently from the Levantine wheat and barley complex.…”