Pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) Domestication and Dispersal Out of Central Asia

Abstract

The pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) is commercially cultivated in semi-arid regions around the globe. Archaeobotanical, genetic, and linguistic data suggest that the pistachio was brought under cultivation somewhere within its wild range, spanning southern Central Asia, northern Iran, and northern Afghanistan. Historically, pistachio cultivation has primarily relied on grafting, suggesting that, as with many Eurasian tree crops, domestication resulted from genetically locking hybrids or favored individuals in place. Plant domestication and dispersal research has largely focused on weedy, highly adaptable, self-compatible annuals; in this discussion, we present a case study that involves a dioecious long-lived perennial—a domestication process that would have required a completely different traditional ecological knowledge system than that utilized for grain cultivation. We argue that the pistachio was brought under cultivation in southern Central Asia, spreading westward by at least 2000 years ago (maybe a few centuries earlier to the mountains of modern Syria) and moved eastward only at the end of the first millennium AD. The seeds remain rare in archaeological sites outside its native range, even into the mid-second millennium AD, and may not have been widely cultivated until the past few hundred years.

History, Phylogeny, Biodiversity, and New Computer-Based Tools for Efficient Micropropagation and Conservation of Pistachio (Pistacia spp.) Germplasm

“…Pistachio has many names but only one root. ‘Pista’ constitutes the root for the word pistachio in many European languages; exported from the Persian Empire to the Classical period in Greek ‘pistákia’ [pistakeon] and latter in Latin ‘pistacia’ from which it derives the current names of ‘pistacchio’ (Italian), ‘pistachio’ (English), ‘pistacho’ (Spanish), ‘pistache’ (French), ‘pistazie’ (German); but also in many other Central Asia such as ‘pista’ in Uzbek and Tajik, ‘psta’ in Kazakh, ‘pisse’ in Turkmen, ‘miste’ in Kyrgyz; and even ‘fistashka’ (Russian), ‘fistuk’(Hebrew), ‘fustak’ (Arabic), ‘fistik’ (Turkish) which comes the from ‘pstk’ word [ 2 , 3 ]. Nowadays, the pistachio word is applied to the plant and fruits of P. vera L.…”

“…Around 30 A.D., according to Chitzanidis [ 25 ]: ‘Pliny the elder (Natural History, XV, 83, 91) the knight Vitelius brought the pistachio to his house in Rome at the end of the reign of Tiberius and in the same year the knight Flacus Pompeius introduced it into Spain’ [ 33 ]. During the Middle Ages, pistachio cultivation expanded to the rest of the Mediterranean basin [ 5 ], and in the 19th century, pistachio was introduced in the USA and Australia [ 3 , 14 , 34 ].…”

“…The present distribution has been impacted by the exploitation of pistachio trees by local human populations, who have used them as a source of fuel and heavy pasturing of cattle, preventing natural renewal [ 37 ], and replacing them with a few high-yield commercial cultivars. More recent details about the pistachio origin and cultivation can be found in recent reports [ 3 , 38 ].…”

“…The etymology of the pistachio’s name originates from only one word ‘pstk’ [pistag] in the ancient Persian language, Avestan [ 1 ]. ‘Pista’ constitutes the root for the word pistachio in almost all languages that arose from the Persian and from the oldest Central Asia classical languages such as ‘pista’, ‘psta’, ‘pisse’ or ‘miste’ and the Mediterranean countries such as ‘pistákia’, ‘pistacia’, ‘fistuk’, ‘fustak’ or ‘fistik’ and in all present-day modern languages derived from those classical languages such as ‘pistacchio’, ‘ pistachio’, ‘pistacho’, ‘pistache’ or ‘pistazie’ [ 2 , 3 ]. At present, although the word pistachio is applied to several species (plants and fruits) of the genus Pistacia , only the edible fruits of the species Pistacia vera L., which is most widely accepted by consumers, are marketed under the name pistachio worldwide.…”

“…Initially, it was thought that pistachio was native to the arid areas of old Mesopotamia, currently Syria and Iraq, and some parts of Turkey and Iran; however, later studies have suggested that pistachio was first consumed by Neandertals around 300,000 years ago, and later (around 8000 years BC) in southern Central Asia [ 4 ], including northern Afghanistan and northeastern Iran. The current evidence suggests that the domestication and cultivation of the plant occurred around 3000 years ago in Iran, introduced firstly to Syria and later to Italy during the Roman period, expanding to the rest of the Mediterranean basin during the Middle Ages [ 5 ] and finally imported to the USA, the largest pistachio producer country, in the late 1880s [ 3 , 6 ].…”