From ecological opportunism to multi-cropping: Mapping food globalisation in prehistory

Abstract

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.

Human Responses to Climate Change in the Late Prehistoric Western Loess Plateau, Northwest China

“…The late Neolithic and Bronze Age are unique periods for studying the evolution of human-land relationships, because these particular time periods witnesses the rise and fall many of the earliest civilizations as well as fluctuations in trans-Eurasian culture exchange, alongside climate data (Spengler et al 2014;Dong et al 2017b;Liu et al 2019). According to high-resolution paleoclimate records in WLP, which include bio-markers from the sediment of the Liupan Tianchi Lake and oxygen isotopic data from stalagmites in the Jiuxian Cave, the temperature remained relatively high between 5500 and 3600 cal yr BP, but was followed by several cold periods between ca.…”

Assessing the occurrence and status of wheat in late Neolithic central China: the importance of direct AMS radiocarbon dates from Xiazhai

“…It suggests that wheat spread to the northern steppe first and then went southwards into different parts of the Yellow river region along various parallel routes (Zhao 2009; Barton and An 2014;Zhao 2015b). A third hypothesis attempts to grapple with the apparently earliest occurrence of wheat in eastern China, on the Shandong peninsula (Jin et al 2011;Long et a;Liu et al 2019) and shortly thereafter in northern Fujian (although without direct dating, Jiao 2007, p. 246), suggesting even the possibility of coming by sea from India (Zhao 2012;Liu et al 2019), or perhaps via the easternmost Mongolian steppe and via northeastern China to reach Shandong first. Long et al (2018) have argued for trading in wheat as a luxury item via the eastern Mongolian steppe initially to the lower Yellow river region (Shandong).…”

A biodiverse package of southwest Asian grain crops facilitated high-elevation agriculture in the central Tien Shan during the mid-third millennium BCE

“…A number of crops originating in diverse landscapes of what is now present-day China, such as millets, hemp and buckwheat, spread to Europe, while a variety of southwestern Asian crops, such as wheat and barley, became important food sources across monsoonal Asia [1–4]. In the past decade, sampling for botanical remains during archaeological excavation has become routine, and subsequent analysis has transformed our understanding of the timing and routes of plant dispersals through Central Asia [5,6]. Along these lines, one of the most important discoveries at the forefront of this fluorescence in archaeobotanical research in Central Asia was the earliest millet and wheat found together at the site of Begash in the Dzhungar Mountains of Kazakhstan dated to the end of the 3 rd millennium BCE [5,6].…”

“…In the past decade, sampling for botanical remains during archaeological excavation has become routine, and subsequent analysis has transformed our understanding of the timing and routes of plant dispersals through Central Asia [5,6]. Along these lines, one of the most important discoveries at the forefront of this fluorescence in archaeobotanical research in Central Asia was the earliest millet and wheat found together at the site of Begash in the Dzhungar Mountains of Kazakhstan dated to the end of the 3 rd millennium BCE [5,6]. Further work across China showed that during the first half of the second millennium BCE, wheat and barley became fully integrated into millet cultivation systems, thus transforming agricultural strategies and culinary traditions of communities in ancient China [4,5,8–10].…”