The ‘Wheat Puzzle’ and Kartvelians route to the Caucasus

Beridze, Tengiz

doi:10.1007/s10722-019-00759-9

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Concurrently with North‐Caucasus Majkop culture (5,850–4,850 BP), recognized as the putative homeland of the Northwestern Caucasian language family (walnut proto‐term *ĺa , Wang et al., 2019), a wide variety of plant foods including, grape ( Vitis vinifera ), hazelnut ( Corylus ), common walnut, and sweet chestnut were stored in ceramic vessels as offerings for votive/ritual purpose in the geographically adjacent settlements of the Kura‐Araxes culture in the Southern Caucasus (Areni‐1 Cave, Armenia 6,230–5,790 BP, Wilkinson et al., 2012; Aradetis Orgora, Georgia, 4,950 BP, Kvavadze et al., 2019). While it is still matter of debate if Kartvelian was the idiom spoken by Kura‐Axes communities (Beridze, 2019, walnut proto‐term *ḳaḳ‐al‐, chestnut proto‐term *ć̣ab‐ ), the subsequent Indo‐European speakers of the Early Kurgan settlements in Georgia showed similar habits using animals, cereals, hazelnuts, figs ( Ficus carica L.), walnuts (Indo‐European proto‐form *kar and *a‐/an‐gōza ), and chestnuts (Indo‐European proto‐form *kastAno‐ and *blwt' ) as major components of funeral gifts (Bedeni Plateau, 4,450–4,150 BP, Kvavadze et al., 2015; Ananauri‐3‐kurgan site, 4,450 BP, Makharadze, 2015). All these studies suggested that common walnut and sweet chestnut cultivation, together with viticulture and pasturing, was fully incorporated in the Trans‐Caucasian agricultural landscape of EBA.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biocultural diversity of common walnut (Juglans regia L.) and sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) across Eurasia

Pollegioni

Lungo

Müller

et al. 2020

Ecology and Evolution

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A biocultural diversity approach integrates plant biology and germplasm dispersal processes with human cultural diversity. An increasing number of studies have identified cultural factors and ethnolinguistic barriers as the main drivers of the genetic diversity in crop plants. Little is known about how anthropogenic processes have affected the evolution of tree crops over the entire time scale of their interaction with humans. In Asia and the Mediterranean, common walnut ( Juglans regia L.) and sweet chestnut ( Castanea sativa Mill.) have been economically and culturally important crops for millennia; there, in ancient times, they were invested with symbolic and religious significance. In this study, we detected a partial geographic congruence between the ethno‐linguistic repartition of human communities, the distribution of major cognitive sets of word‐related terms, and the inferred genetic clusters of common walnut and sweet chestnut populations across Eurasia. Our data indicated that isolation by distance processes, landscape heterogeneity and cultural boundaries might have promoted simultaneously human language diversification and walnut/chestnut differentiation across the same geographic macro‐regions. Hotspots of common walnut and sweet chestnut genetic diversity were associated with areas of linguistic enrichment in the Himalayas, Trans‐Caucasus, and Pyrenees Mountains, where common walnuts and sweet chestnuts had sustained ties to human culture since the Early Bronze Age. Our multidisciplinary approach supported the indirect and direct role of humans in shaping walnut and chestnut diversity across Eurasia from the EBA (e.g., Persian Empire and Greek–Roman colonization) until the first evidence of active selection and clonal propagation by grafting of both species. Our findings highlighted the benefit of an efficient integration of the relevant cultural factors in the classical genome (G) × environmental (E) model and the urgency of a systematic application of the biocultural diversity concept in the reconstruction of the evolutionary history of tree species.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biocultural diversity of common walnut (Juglans regia L.) and sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) across Eurasia

Pollegioni

Lungo

Müller

et al. 2020

Ecology and Evolution

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“…The “Wheat Enigma” was a term for the observation that wild predecessors of five Georgian endemic wheat subspecies are found in Fertile Crescent, quite far from the South Caucasus [ 8 , 9 ]. One possibility to explain the “Wheat Enigma” is that speakers of ProtoGeorgian language could have moved to Mesopotamia after migration from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, where wheat was domesticated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One possibility to explain the “Wheat Enigma” is that speakers of ProtoGeorgian language could have moved to Mesopotamia after migration from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, where wheat was domesticated. Furthermore, they could have migrated to South Caucasus together with domesticated wheat subspecies [ 9 , 10 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic Analysis of Hexaploid Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Using the Complete Sequencing of Chloroplast DNA and Haplotype Analysis of the Wknox1 Gene

Gogniashvili

Matsuoka

Beridze

2021

IJMS

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The aim of the presented study is a genetic characterization of the hexaploid wheat Triticum aestivum L. Two approaches were used for the genealogical study of hexaploid wheats—the complete sequencing of chloroplast DNA and PCR-based haplotype analysis of the fourth intron of Wknox1d and of the fifth-to-sixth-exon region of Wknox1b. The complete chloroplast DNA sequences of 13 hexaploid wheat samples were determined: Free-threshing—T. aestivum subsp. aestivum, one sample; T. aestivum subsp. compactum, two samples; T. aestivum subsp. sphaerococcum, one sample; T. aestivum subsp. carthlicoides, four samples. Hulled—T. aestivum subsp. spelta, three samples; T. aestivum subsp. vavilovii jakubz., two samples. The comparative analysis of complete cpDNA sequences of 20 hexaploid wheat samples (13 samples in this article plus 7 samples sequenced in this laboratory in 2018) was carried out. PCR-based haplotype analysis of the fourth intron of Wknox1d and of the fifth-to-sixth exon region of Wknox1b of all 20 hexaploid wheat samples was carried out. The 20 hexaploid wheat samples (13 samples in this article plus 7 samples in 2018) can be divided into two groups—T. aestivum subsp. spelta, three samples and T. aestivum subsp. vavilovii collected in Armenia, and the remaining 16 samples, including T. aestivum subsp. vavilovii collected in Europe (Sweden). If we take the cpDNA of Chinese Spring as a reference, 25 SNPs can be identified. Furthermore, 13–14 SNPs can be identified in T. aestivum subsp. spelta and subsp. vavilovii (Vav1). In the other samples up to 11 SNPs were detected. 22 SNPs are found in the intergenic regions, 2 found in introns, and 10 SNPs were found in the genes, of which seven are synonymous. PCR-based haplotype analysis of the fourth intron of Wknox1d and the fifth-to-sixth-exon region of Wknox1b provides an opportunity to make an assumption that hexaploid wheats T. aestivum subsp. macha var. palaeocolchicum and var. letshckumicum differ from other macha samples by the absence of a 42 bp insertion in the fourth intron of Wknox1d. One possible explanation for this observation would be that two Aegilops tauschii Coss. (A) and (B) participated in the formation of hexaploids through the D genome: Ae. tauschii (A)—macha (1–5, 7, 8, 10–12), and Ae. tauschii (B)—macha M6, M9, T. aestivum subsp. aestivum cv. ‘Chinese Spring’ and cv. ‘Red Doly’.

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