New AMS 14C dates track the arrival and spread of broomcorn millet cultivation and agricultural change in prehistoric Europe

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985912%3A_____%2F20%3A00532492" target="_blank" >RIV/67985912:_____/20:00532492 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-70495-z.pdf" target="_blank" >https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-70495-z.pdf</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-70495-z" target="_blank" >10.1038/s41598-020-70495-z</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

New AMS 14C dates track the arrival and spread of broomcorn millet cultivation and agricultural change in prehistoric Europe

Original language description

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) is not one of the founder crops domesticated in Southwest Asia in the early Holocene, but was domesticated in northeast China by 6000 BC. In Europe, millet was reported in Early Neolithic contexts formed by 6000 BC, but recent radiocarbon dating of a dozen ’early’ grains cast doubt on these claims. Archaeobotanical evidence reveals that millet was common in Europe from the 2nd millennium BC, when major societal and economic transformations took place in the Bronze Age. We conducted an extensive programme of AMS-dating of charred broomcorn millet grains from 75 prehistoric sites in Europe. Our Bayesian model reveals that millet cultivation began in Europe at the earliest during the sixteenth century BC, and spread rapidly during the fifteenth/fourteenth centuries BC. Broomcorn millet succeeds in exceptionally wide range of growing conditions and completes its lifecycle in less than three summer months. Offering an additional harvest and thus surplus food/fodder, it likely was a transformative innovation in European prehistoric agriculture previously based mainly on (winter) cropping of wheat and barley. We provide a new, high-resolution chronological framework for this key agricultural development that likely contributed to far-reaching changes in lifestyle in late 2nd millennium BC Europe.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60102 - Archaeology

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2020

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Scientific Reports

ISSN

2045-2322

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

10

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

18

Pages from-to

13698

UT code for WoS article

000563546400030

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85089471996