9,000-year-old barley consumption in the foothills of central Asia
Abstract
Scholars are increasingly favoring models for the origins of agriculture that involve a protracted process of increasing interdependence within a series of mutualistic relationships between humans and plants, as opposed to a rapid single event or innovation. Nonetheless, these scholars continue to debate over when people first started foraging for grass seeds, when they began to readily utilize sickles, how prominent the early selection pressures were, and when the first traits of domestication fully introgressed into the cultivated grass population. Here, we present complementary archaeobotanical and archaeological (stone tool) evidence for cereal foragers from Toda-1 Cave in the Surkhan Darya, dating to 9200 cal BP. We conclude that early Holocene foragers were processing grains along with nuts and fruits as far north as the rich river valleys of southern Uzbekistan. These data expand the known range that preagricultural cereal foragers covered in the early Holocene, adding to our understanding of the cultural processes that led to farming. Additionally, we present the earliest evidence for people interacting with the progenitors for pistachios and apples (or a close apple relative). The complex foraging behaviors that led to cultivation were being undertaken by people during the early Holocene across a wider area of Eurasia than previously thought.
Article Details
Journal Info
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Sciences
Authors (23)
Xinying Zhou
Key Scientific Research Base on Paleolithic Human Evolution and Paleogenetics (State Cultural Heritage Administration), Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Robert N. Spengler
Domestication and Anthropogenic Evolution Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
Bahediyoh Sayfullaev
National Center of Archeology, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan
Khasanov Mutalibjon
Faculty of History, University of Ferghana
Jian Ma
Junchi Liu
Key Scientific Research Base on Paleolithic Human Evolution and Paleogenetics (State Cultural Heritage Administration), Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hui Shen
Keliang Zhao
Key Scientific Research Base on Paleolithic Human Evolution and Paleogenetics (State Cultural Heritage Administration), Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Guanhan Chen
Key Scientific Research Base on Paleolithic Human Evolution and Paleogenetics (State Cultural Heritage Administration), Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jian Wang
Thomas A. Stidham
Key Scientific Research Base on Paleolithic Human Evolution and Paleogenetics (State Cultural Heritage Administration), Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hai Xu
Department of Biological and Energy Chemical Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), 66 Changjiang West Road, Qingdao 266580, China
Guilin Zhang
Institute of Surface-Earth System Science, Tianjin University
Qingjiang Yang
Key Scientific Research Base on Paleolithic Human Evolution and Paleogenetics (State Cultural Heritage Administration), Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yemao Hou
Key Scientific Research Base on Paleolithic Human Evolution and Paleogenetics (State Cultural Heritage Administration), Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jiacheng Ma
State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter
Nasibillo Kambarov
College of Cultural Heritage, Northwest University
Hongen Jiang
College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Farhod Maksudov
National Center of Archeology, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan
Steven Goldstein
Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh
Jianxin Wang
Dorian Q. Fuller
Institute of Archaeology, University College London
Xiaoqiang Li
Key Scientific Research Base on Paleolithic Human Evolution and Paleogenetics (State Cultural Heritage Administration), Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences