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The early chronology of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) in Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2013

Giedre Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute ,
Richard A. Staff ,
Harriet V. Hunt ,
Xinyi Liu  and
Martin K. Jones
Giedre Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute
Affiliation:
1McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK (Email: gm327@cam.ac.uk; xl241@cam.ac.uk; hvh22@cam.ac.uk) 2History Faculty/Department of Archaeology, Vilnius University, Universiteto 7, 01513 Vilnius, Lithuania (Email: Giedre.keen@if.vu.lt)
Richard A. Staff
Affiliation:
3Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK (Email: richard.staff@rlaha.ox.ac.uk)
Harriet V. Hunt
Affiliation:
1McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK (Email: gm327@cam.ac.uk; xl241@cam.ac.uk; hvh22@cam.ac.uk)
Xinyi Liu
Affiliation:
1McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK (Email: gm327@cam.ac.uk; xl241@cam.ac.uk; hvh22@cam.ac.uk)
Martin K. Jones
Affiliation:
4Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK (Email: mkj12@cam.ac.uk)
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Abstract

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.

Keywords

EuropeNeolithicbroomcorn milletPanicum miliaceumAMS datingceramic grain impressionsEurasian connections
Type
Research articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 87 , Issue 338 , December 2013 , pp. 1073 - 1085
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2013

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