We have collated and reviewed published records of the genera Panicum and Setaria (Poaceae), including the domesticated millets Panicum miliaceum L. (broomcorn millet) and Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv. (foxtail millet) in pre-5000 cal B.C. sites across the Old World. Details of these sites, which span China, centraleastern Europe including the Caucasus, Iran, Syria and Egypt, are presented with associated calibrated radiocarbon dates. Forty-one sites have records of Panicum (P. miliaceum, P. cf. miliaceum, Panicum sp., Panicum type, P. capillare (?) and P. turgidum) and 33 of Setaria (S. italica, S. viridis, S. viridis/verticillata, Setaria sp., Setaria type). We identify problems of taphonomy, identification criteria and reporting, and inference of domesticated/wild and crop/weed status of finds. Both broomcorn and foxtail millet occur in northern China prior to 5000 cal B.C.; P. miliaceum occurs contemporaneously in Europe, but its significance is unclear. Further work is needed to resolve the above issues before the status of these taxa in this period can be fully evaluated.

Plant sources of starch have been domesticated in several parts of the world. By the second millennium BC in various parts of Eurasia, such starchy crops are encountered, not only around their geographical regions of origin, but also at considerable distances from them. Drawing on evidence from across Eurasia, this paper explores this episode of food globalization in prehistory, comparable in the scale of its impact on global diets to the Columbian Exchange of historic times. Possible reasons for the earlier episode of food globalization are discussed and situated within a broader consideration of cross-continental contact in prehistory.

The majority of the early crops grown in Europe had their origins in south-west Asia, and were part of a package of domestic plants and animals that were introduced by the first farmers. Broomcorn millet, however, offers a very different narrative, being domesticated first in China, but present in Eastern Europe apparently as early as the sixth millennium BC. Might this be evidence of long-distance contact between east and west, long before there is any other evidence for such connections? Or is the existing chronology faulty in some way? To resolve that question, 10 grains of broomcorn millet were directly dated by AMS, taking advantage of the increasing ability to date smaller and smaller samples.These showed that the millet grains were significantly younger than the contexts in which they had been found, and that the hypothesis of an early transmission of the crop from east to west could not be sustained. The importance of direct dating of crop remains such as these is underlined.

Many of today's major food crops are distributed worldwide. While much of this 'food globalisation' has resulted from modern trade networks, it has its roots in prehistory. In this paper, we examine cereal crops that moved long distances across the Old World between 5000 and 1500 BC. Drawing together recent archaeological evidence, we are now able to construct a new chronology and biogeography of prehistoric food globalisation. Here we rationalize the evidence for this process within three successive episodes: pre-5000 BC, between 5000 and 2500 BC, and between 2500 and 1500 BC. Each episode can be characterized by distinct biogeographical patterns, social drivers of the crop movements, and ecological constraints upon the crop plants. By 1500 BC, this process of food globalisation had brought together previously isolated agricultural systems, to constitute a new kind of agriculture in which the bringing together of local and exotic crops enables a new form of intensification.

This article explores the context of the long-distance translocation of crops in prehistory. We draw upon contrasts in the isotopic signatures of Southwest Asian crops, including wheat and barley -C 3 plants, compared to Asian millets -C 4 plants, to investigate a key region of trans-Eurasian exchange, the Chinese province of Gansu. The isotopic results demonstrate that in Gansu province prior to 2000 cal. BC, the staples were millets. Between 2000 and 1800 cal. BC, there was a significant shift in staple foods towards the Southwest Asian crops. In the broader regional context, however, it would seem that these novel crops were not consumed in large quantities in many parts of China during the second millennium BC. This suggests that, while the Southwest Asian crops were adopted and became a staple food source in Gansu province in the second millennium BC, they were disregarded as staple foods elsewhere in the same millennium.

This paper explores the contribution of plant food to the diet of societies in Kazakhstan that are often assumed to be pastoralist. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis, together with radiocarbon dating, was carried out on human and animal bones from 24 Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, Early Iron Age, Hunic and Turkic sites across Kazakhstan. We use these data to examine dietary differences across time and space within and between populations. Our results show that at the Bronze Age sites of mountainous southern Kazakhstan people consumed C4 plants, likely domesticated millets (Panicum miliaceum or Setaria italica) and probably cultivated C3 plants (wheat or barley). By directly dating individuals with high δ 13 C values we were able to find the earliest evidence of the consumption of large quantities of millet in Central Asia to date. By contrast, there is little input of C4 plants to diets of individuals dating to the Bronze Age from northern Kazakhstan. Stable isotope data from later periods all across the region has shown that from the Early Iron Age and continuing through to the Turkic period, C4 plants were a major component of the human food web. The wide variety of stable isotope results, both within and between contemporary sites, indicates a diversity of foodways, rather than a uniform focus on pastoralism.

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Steppe communities have traditionally been viewed as pastoralist groups with similar herdbased economies. Recent scholarship, however, warns against assumptions of homogeneity and new scientific techniques are providing a more nuanced approach to steppe archaeology, with increasing indications of diversity. This recent evidence further suggests that considering these communities as primarily pastoralist may hide a variety of subsistence strategies, such as fishing and cultivation. Here, we consider direct evidence for diet (in the form of stable isotope analysis) from Bronze Age communities from central Kazakhstan, in the semi-arid steppe zone. We find that the diversity recently suggested for communities across the steppe zone can be found within sites in the Karaganda region. This suggests that individuals exercised choice in their dietary habits that led to dietary differences large enough to be detectable isotopically. The results also highlight the inclusion of fish in the diet of these 'pastoral' populations, with indications that some individuals in the Final Bronze Age consumed notable amounts of millet. This shows that these 'pastoralist' economies also engaged in fishing throughout the Bronze Age, with millet cultivation becoming increasingly important in the Final Bronze Age. As such, our understanding of what it means, in this context, to be a pastoralist requires further consideration.