̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Neolithic era

Millet: the missing piece in the puzzle of prehistoric humans’ transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers

jeh98 — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 11:08:15 +0000

̽��ֱ��domestication of the small-seeded cereal millet in North China around 10,000 years ago created the perfect crop to bridge the gap between nomadic hunter-gathering and organised agriculture in Neolithic Eurasia, and may offer solutions to modern food security, according to new research.

Now a forgotten crop in the West, this hardy grain – familiar in the west today as birdseed – was ideal for ancient shepherds and herders, who carried it right across Eurasia, where it was mixed with crops such as wheat and barley. This gave rise to ‘multi-cropping’, which in turn sowed the seeds of complex urban societies, say archaeologists.

A team from the UK, USA and China has traced the spread of the domesticated grain from North China and Inner Mongolia into Europe through a “hilly corridor” along the foothills of Eurasia. Millet favours uphill locations, doesn’t require much water, and has a short growing season: it can be harvested 45 days after planting, compared with 100 days for rice, allowing a very mobile form of cultivation.

Nomadic tribes were able to combine growing crops of millet with hunting and foraging as they travelled across the continent between 2500 and 1600 BC. Millet was eventually mixed with other crops in emerging populations to create ‘multi-crop’ diversity, which extended growing seasons and provided our ancient ancestors with food security.

̽��ֱ��need to manage different crops in different locations, and the water resources required, depended upon elaborate social contracts and the rise of more settled, stratified communities and eventually complex ‘urban’ human societies.

Researchers say we need to learn from the earliest farmers when thinking about feeding today’s populations, and millet may have a role to play in protecting against modern crop failure and famine.

“Today millet is in decline and attracts relatively little scientific attention, but it was once among the most expansive cereals in geographical terms. We have been able to follow millet moving in deep history, from where it originated in China and spread across Europe and India,” said Professor Martin Jones from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, who is presenting the research findings today at the Shanghai Archaeological Forum.

“These findings have transformed our understanding of early agriculture and society. It has previously been assumed that early agriculture was focused in river valleys where there is plentiful access to water. However, millet remains show that the first agriculture was instead centred higher up on the foothills – allowing this first pathway for ‘exotic’ eastern grains to be carried west.”

̽��ֱ��researchers carried out radiocarbon dating and isotope analysis on charred millet grains recovered from archaeological sites across China and Inner Mongolia, as well as genetic analysis of modern millet varieties, to reveal the process of domestication that occurred over thousands of years in northern China and produced the ancestor of all broomcorn millet worldwide.

“We can see that millet in northern China was one of the earliest centres of crop domestication, occurring over the same timescale as rice domestication in south China and barley and wheat in west China,” explained Jones.

“Domestication is hugely significant in the development of early agriculture – humans select plants with seeds that don’t fall off naturally and can be harvested, so over several thousand years this creates plants that are dependent on farmers to reproduce,” he said.

“This also means that the genetic make-up of these crops changes in response to changes in their environment – in the case of millet, we can see that certain genes were ‘switched off’ as they were taken by farmers far from their place of origin.”

As the network of farmers, shepherds and herders crystallised across the Eurasian corridor, they shared crops and cultivation techniques with other farmers, and this, Jones explains, is where the crucial idea of ‘multi-cropping’ emerged.

“ ̽��ֱ��first pioneer farmers wanted to farm upstream in order to have more control over their water source and be less dependent on seasonal weather variations or potential neighbours upstream,” he said. “But when ‘exotic’ crops appear in addition to the staple crop of the region, then you start to get different crops growing in different areas and at different times of year. This is a huge advantage in terms of shoring up communities against possible crop failures and extending the growing season to produce more food or even surplus.

“However, it also introduces a more pressing need for cooperation, and the beginnings of a stratified society. With some people growing crops upstream and some farming downstream, you need a system of water management, and you can’t have water management and seasonal crop rotation without an elaborate social contract.”

Towards the end of the second and first millennia BC larger human settlements, underpinned by multi-crop agriculture, began to develop. ̽��ֱ��earliest examples of text, such as the Sumerian clay tablets from Mesopotamia, and oracle bones from China, allude to multi-crop agriculture and seasonal rotation.

But the significance of millet is not just in transforming our understanding of our prehistoric past. Jones believes that millet and other small-seeded crops may have an important role to play in ensuring future food security.

“ ̽��ֱ��focus for looking at food security today is on the high-yield crops, rice, maize and wheat, which fuel 50% of the human food chain. However, these are only three of 50 types of cereal, the majority of which are small-grained cereals or “millets”. It may be time to consider whether millets have a role to play in a diverse response to crop failure and famine,” said Jones.

“We need to understand more about millet and how it may be part of the solution to global food security – we may have a lot still to learn from our Neolithic predecessors.”

Inset images: Martin Jones with millet in North China (Martin Jones); Inner Mongolian millet farmer in Chifeng (Martin Jones).

New research shows a cereal familiar today as birdseed was carried across Eurasia by ancient shepherds and herders laying the foundation, in combination with the new crops they encountered, of ‘multi-crop’ agriculture and the rise of settled societies. Archaeologists say ‘forgotten’ millet has a role to play in modern crop diversity and today’s food security debate.

We have been able to follow millet moving in deep history, from where it originated in China and spread across Europe and India

Martin Jones

John Moore

Foxtail millet

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Decline in the number of males involved in reproduction during the period of global growth

fpjl2 — Tue, 17 Mar 2015 17:55:11 +0000

In a study published recently in Genome Research, scientists from ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Estonian Biocentre, ̽��ֱ�� of Tartu, Arizona State ̽��ֱ�� and 64 other institutions around the world discovered that accumulation of material culture during the middle and late stages of Neolithic, four to eight thousand years ago, is associated with a dramatic decline in genetic diversity in male lineages whereas female genetic diversity was on the rise.

It has been widely recognized that a major bottleneck, or decrease in genetic diversity, occurred approximately 50 thousand years ago when a subset of humans left Africa to colonize the rest of the world. Signatures of this bottleneck can be seen in most genes of non-African populations regardless of whether they are inherited from both parents or, as confirmed in this work, only along the father’s or mother’s genetic lines.

“Most surprisingly to us, we detected another, male-specific, bottleneck during the period of global growth. ̽��ֱ��signal for this bottleneck dates to a time period when humans in different parts of the world had already for thousands of years been sedentary farmers,” said senior author Toomas Kivisild from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Division of Biological Anthropology.

View an infographic of the research story here.

Melissa Wilson-Sayers, one of the lead authors from the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State ̽��ֱ��, added: “Instead of ‘survival of the fittest’ in biological sense, the accumulation of wealth and power may have increased the reproductive success of a limited number of socially ‘fit’ males and their sons.”

̽��ֱ��researchers said studying genetic history is important for understanding underlying levels of genetic variation. Having a high level of genetic diversity is beneficial to humans for several reasons. First, when the genes of individuals in a population vary greatly, the group has a greater chance of thriving and surviving — particularly against disease. It may also reduce the likelihood of passing along unfavorable genetic traits, which can weaken a species over time.

According to Monika Karmin, co-author from ̽��ֱ�� of Tartu, their findings further stress the differences in human male and female genetic histories which also may have implications related to human health.

“ ̽��ֱ��striking difference in the number of reproductive males and females in that time window certainly affected the diversity of genes on the male genetic line,” said Karmin. “We know that some populations are predisposed to certain types of genetic disorders. Researchers worldwide are trying to figure out what the underlying genetic structure is, so now also the fact that the male part of human lineages has gone trough a severe bottleneck has to be considered.”

“When a doctor tries to provide a diagnosis when you are sick, you’ll be asked about your environment, what’s going on, and your genetic history based on your family’s health. If we want to understand human health on a global scale, we need to know our global genetic history; that is what we are studying here,” added Wilson-Sayers.

̽��ֱ��researchers believe this will be relevant for informing patterns of genetic diversity across whole human populations, including informing about susceptibility to diseases, independently in different populations.

Adapted from an Arizona State ̽��ֱ�� press release.

Wealth and power may have played a stronger role than “survival of the fittest”.

Most surprisingly to us, we detected another, male-specific, bottleneck during the period of global growth

Toomas Kivisild

Arizona State ̽��ֱ��

Details from infographic produced by Arizona State ̽��ֱ��

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Archaeologists uncover Palaeolithic ceramic art

bjb42 — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 22:00:30 +0000

Evidence of a community of prehistoric artists and craftspeople who “invented” ceramics during the last Ice Age – thousands of years before pottery became commonplace - has been found in modern-day Croatia.

̽��ֱ��finds consist of 36 fragments, most of them apparently the broken-off remnants of modelled animals, and come from a site called Vela Spila on the Adriatic coast. Archaeologists believe that they were the products of an artistic culture which sprang up in the region about 17,500 years ago. Their ceramic art flourished for about 2,500 years, but then disappeared.

̽��ֱ��study, which is published in the journal PLoS ONE, adds to a rapidly-changing set of views about when humans first developed the ability to make ceramics and pottery. Most histories of the technology begin with the more settled cultures of the Neolithic era, which began about 10,000 years ago.

Now it is becoming clear that the story was much more complex. Over thousands of years, ceramics were invented, lost, reinvented and lost again. ̽��ֱ��earliest producers did not make crockery, but seem to have had more artistic inclinations.

̽��ֱ��Vela Spila finds have been the subject of intensive investigation by researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and colleagues in Croatia since 2010. Their report, published this week, suggests that although earlier ceramic remnants have been found elsewhere, they had no connection with the site, where the ability to make these artefacts appears to have been independently rediscovered by the people who lived there.

“It is extremely unusual to find ceramic art this early in prehistory,” Dr. Preston Miracle, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said.

“ ̽��ֱ��finds at Vela Spila seem to represent the first evidence of Palaeolithic ceramic art at the end of the last Ice Age. They appear to have been developed independently of anything that had come before. We are starting to see that several distinct Palaeolithic societies made art from ceramic materials long before the Neolithic era, when ceramics became more common and were usually used for more functional purposes.”

Vela Spila is a large, limestone cave on Korčula Island, in the central Dalmatian archipelago. Excavations have taken place there sporadically since 1951, and there is evidence of occupation on the site during the Upper Palaeolithic period, roughly 20,000 years ago, through to the Bronze Age about 3,000 years ago.

̽��ֱ��first ceramic finds were made back in 2001. Initially they were almost overlooked, because it is so unusual to find ceramic in the Upper Palaeolithic record. As more ceramic emerged, however, examples were set aside for careful analysis. Researchers meticulously checked the collection for tell-tale evidence of modelling on the artefacts which would confirm that they had been made by a human hand. In all, 36 cases were identified.

Broadly, the collection belongs to a material culture known as “Epigravettian” which spanned 12,000 years, but radiocarbon dating has allowed scholars to pin down the Vela Spila ceramic collection to a much narrower period, between 17,500 and 15,000 years ago. Those which can be identified appear to be fragments of modelled animals.

̽��ֱ��ceramics were clearly made with care and attention by real craftspeople who knew what they were doing. One of the better-preserved items, which seems to be the torso and foreleg of a horse or deer, shows that the creator deliberately minimised the number of joins in the model, perhaps to give it structural strength. They were also marked with incisions, grooves, and punctured holes, using various tools, probably made from bone or stone. Finger marks can still be seen where the objects were handled while the ceramic paste was wet.

As well as being the first and only evidence of ceramic, figurative art in south-eastern Europe during the Upper Palaeolithic, the collection’s size, range and complexity suggests that Vela Spila was the heart of a flourishing and distinctive artistic tradition. Although the finds bear some similarities with ceramics discovered in the Czech Republic, which date back a further 10,000 years, there are enough structural and stylistic differences - as well as separation by a huge gulf in time - to suggest no continuity between the two.

̽��ֱ��older, Czech finds were also typically found near hearths, which were possibly kilns. Some researchers have even gone so far as to suggest that they were deliberately destroyed in the fire as some sort of ritual act. ̽��ֱ��Vela Spila finds, on the other hand, appear to have undergone no such ritual destruction - at least not in the same way.

As a result, the Cambridge-Croatian team believes that these ceramics came from a hitherto unknown artistic tradition that flourished for about two millennia in the Balkans. Like their Neolithic descendants, these people may have had no knowledge of ceramics before they invented the technology for themselves. And like their Palaeolithic ancestors, over time they either forgot or rejected that technology - only for it to be rediscovered again. ̽��ֱ��next evidence of ceramic technologies at Vela Spila appears 8,000 years later in the record, and comprises functional pottery items rather than art.

“ ̽��ֱ��development of this new material and technology may have been a catalyst for a more general transformation in artistic expression and figurative art at this site thousands of years ago,” Dr Rebecca Farbstein, from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge added. “Although we often focus on utilitarian innovations as examples of societies transforming as a result of new technology, the ceramic evidence we have found here offers a glimpse into the ways in which prehistoric cultures were also sometimes defined and affected by artistic innovations and expression.”

̽��ֱ��article will be available at the following link after 5pm EST on July 24: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0041437

Ceramics found on the coast of the Adriatic attest to a hitherto unknown artistic culture which flourished during the last Ice Age, thousands of years before pottery was commonly used.

We are starting to see that several distinct Palaeolithic societies made art from ceramic materials long before the Neolithic era, when ceramics became more common.

Preston Miracle

Rebecca Farbstein.

Leg and torso from the model of a four-legged animal, possibly a deer or horse. This is one of 36 ceramic items recovered from Vela Spila, Croatia.

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