Next generation sequencing of DNA in 3300-year-old charred cereal grains

We investigated whether ‘next generation’ methods can be used to sequence ancient DNA molecules in charred cereal grains. We prepared a DNA extract from a mixed sample of barley, einkorn, emmer and broomcorn millet, taken from a 3300-year-old assemblage of charred cereal grains from Assiros Toumba, Greece. Using the SOLiD 5500 system, we obtained 21,112,844 unique sequence reads. Of these, 178,779 had a 75% or greater nucleotide sequence similarity with one or more entries in the full nucleotide sequence database; 496 of these matches were to previously reported sequences from barley, einkorn, emmer, broomcorn millet or related species such as hexaploid wheat. The unique reads were also compared with a database comprising only wheat sequences. This analysis identified 1658 charred grain sequences that had 90% or greater similarity with segments of the wheat genome. The presence of barley, wheat and millet sequences in the next generation dataset confirms the presence of ancient DNA in this charred grain assemblage. Enrichment of extracts by hybridization capture or equivalent methods is likely to enable sequences to be obtained for entire genes and other genomic regions of interest.     

山东高青陈庄遗址炭化种子果实研究

通过对山东高青陈庄遗址灰坑等遗迹中出土的炭化植物种子果实进行鉴定和统计分析,探讨了该聚落人类与植物的关系:(1)遗址中出土的丰富的粟、黍和草木犀属植物遗存,可能与马的喂养有关;(2)陈庄聚落西周时期农业是主要的食物来源,农作物包括了文献记载的"五谷",就是粟、黍、小麦、大豆和稻,粟和小麦等旱地作物占的比重最高,水稻可能较少,牛筋草等杂草可能是收获等过程中带入聚落内的;(3)常见的野生植物如野大豆、枣、葡萄以及动物遗骸等可能反映狩猎捕捞仍然作为食物的补充。     

关于夏商周文明形成时期农业经济特点的一些思考

黄河流域地区是粟和黍的起源地, 也是夏商周文明的诞生地, 由此导致了夏商周文明的农业基础应该是以粟和黍为主要粮食作物的传统认识, 但事实是否如此是一个值得认真讨论的问题。结合甲骨文的记载, 并通过对该地区自然生态环境背景、农作物的生长习性以及现有的考古资料的综合分析, 本文认为, 黄河流域地区农业经济的发展在夏商周时期出现了新的变化, 粟和黍的主导地位开始受到冲击, 麦类作物已经传入, 稻谷在夏商周文明形成过程中发挥了重要的作用。     

Miliacin in palaeosols from an Early Iron Age in Ukraine reveal in situ cultivation of broomcorn millet

During the archaeobotanical investigation of Scythian–Sarmatian period (Early Iron Age), pits with crop processing waste, discovered in the floodplain of Donets River, eastern Ukraine, and charred remains of cereal grains, dominated by broomcorn millet, were recorded. The grains from the pits were radiocarbon dated to the fifth to first century BC. Those pits are distant from any known contemporaneous settlement. The apparent disconnection of these pits from any local settlement suggests that (1) millet was brought from other locations by mobile groups, or (2) millet was cultivated locally by populations whose settlements have left no discernible archaeological trace. The analysis of molecular biomarkers preserved in palaeosols that are stratigraphically connected to the pits revealed high levels of miliacin, a molecule that can be preserved in ancient soils and sediments, and that is consistent with broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum). High levels in miliacin in soils stratigraphically connected to the pits are interpreted as the result of a large biomass of P. miliaceum produced at time of soil formation. Our biogeochemical results applied to a palaeosol thus attest to the in situ cultivation of crops dominated by the broomcorn millet during the early Iron Age in the floodplain of Donets River. Biochemical examination of soils and palaeosols can thus provide useful information on past dynamics of land-use by ancient population, especially when settlements or macrobotanical remains are absent.     

Starch grains analysis of stone knives from Changning site,Qinghai Province,Northwest China

Plant residues recovered from prehistoric stone artifacts can be used to help explain tool function and plant use. At the Changning site in Qinghai Province, Northwest China, dating from 4000 yr BP, we examined starch granules extracted from three slate stone knives. A total of 153 starch grains were retrieved from three stone knives, from which we identified starches from legumes, the Triticeae tribe, foxtail millet (Setaria italica), broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum), roots and tubers. These results indicate that the stone knives may have been used for a variety of activities that included reaping grasses and food processing. The species of starch grains retrieved from the study sample reveal that diverse crops were cultivated at the Changning site 4000 years ago.     

Agricultural change in Copper Age Croatia (ca. 4500–2500 cal B.C)?

The Copper Age in the Carpathian Basin is marked by a distinct change in settlement patterns, material culture, social traditions and subsistence practices; however, few studies address the nature of crop cultivation in the region. This paper examines new archaeobotanical data from 13 Copper Age (ca. 4500–2500 cal BC) sites located in continental Croatia, in order to assess the extent to which crop agriculture may have changed and contributed to overall subsistence economies in the Copper Age. From the archaeobotanical results, a dominance in einkorn and emmer is seen followed by barley. Less frequently millet, naked wheat and spelt/new glume wheat are also recovered, but due to their limited numbers, it is less clear whether they were grown as crops or represent weeds. Pulses (e.g. lentil, pea and grass pea), fruit remains (e.g. cornelian cherry and chinese lantern) and wild plant and weed species are also recovered, although more commonly from the late Copper Age sites. The archaeobotanical results show a clear reduction in the quantity and range of plant species recovered during the early/middle Copper Age; however, this is likely the result of taphonomic bias rather than a reduction in crop cultivation. The results therefore highlight problems of recovery bias in the region, which makes comparisons between sites as well as the reconstruction of crop husbandry regimes difficult. Overall, the results from continental Croatia suggest that the type of crops cultivated continued relatively unchanged from the late Neolithic, although it is clear that more research is desperately needed to explore the relationship between crop agriculture and the changing socio-economic environment of the Copper Age in the region.     

内蒙赤峰巴彦塔拉辽代遗址浮选结果及分析

伴随巴彦塔拉辽代遗址的发掘过程进行了植物浮选工作,获得了包括粟、黍、大麦、荞麦、大麻等农作物籽粒,以及禾本科、藜科、豆科、锦葵科等植物种子。通过植物遗存的分类与鉴定及遗址出土相关考古资料综合分析,该遗址辽代先民的生业经济应属于以种植粟、黍、荞麦、大麻为主的北方典型旱作农业,同时兼营牧业。     

Distribution patterns of cultivated plants in the Eastern Alps (Central Europe) during Iron Age

Carbonized fruits and seeds from two recently investigated Iron Age hilltop settlements, one located north and the other south of the main Alpine range, were analyzed and reveal a detailed insight in the subsistence strategies of the Eastern Alps. The results were compared with archaeobotanical data sets from other Iron Age excavation sites in Austria, Eastern Switzerland and Northern Italy. On the basis of variable data from 17 sites it is not possible to detect a geographical pattern through statistical analyses. On the basis of the frequencies, however, it becomes clear that the principal cereals were Hordeum vulgare (hulled six-rowed barley), Triticum dicoccon and T. spelta (emmer and spelt) and Panicum miliaceum (broomcorn millet). In addition, foxtail millet (Setaria italica) as well as naked wheat played some role. Legumes such as Vicia faba (horse bean) and Pisum sativum (pea) also occurred regularly and supplemented the diet of the prehistoric settlers. More systematic research with standardized methods is however urgently needed to corroborate the existing data.     

世界农业起源地的地理基础与中国的贡献

本文以世界三大农作物起源地为核心,提出粟、黍、水稻等农作物的驯化是中国为世界文明进程作出的最大贡献。还重点讨论了农作物起源地的环境属性,并指出农业最初产生之地并非自然环境最优之处。自然环境的不利是迫使人们放弃采集渔猎、选择通过生产获得食物的原因;而自然条件良好的欧洲平原地带,正是由于动植物资源的充裕而长期处于野蛮状态,滞缓了文明发展的进程。因此,从地理的视角,审度人类的文明进程,起步之处却是环境脆弱地带。     

Neolithic and Bronze Age Agriculture in Southern Scandinavia – Recent Archaeobotanical Evidence from Denmark

Abstract

This paper presents archaeobotanical studies from the Danish regions of Thy, northern Schleswig and Djursland. The data are discussed in the light of developments in the landscape and in house architecture; comparisons are made with the contemporary situation in southern Sweden. Pollen analysis reveals that Thy was more or less treeless by the end of the Neolithic, whereas Djursland maintained its forests for a further 1500 years; the situation in northern Schleswig lies somewhere in between. Developments in house architecture are very similar in the three areas. The shift from two-aisled to three-aisled houses occurred in period I/II of the Bronze Age and phosphate analyses suggest that the earliest Danish byre dates from the beginning of period II.

Crop plant assemblages are dominated by naked barley and emmer and remain remarkably stable from the Single Grave Culture to the Late Bronze Age in Thy, from the Middle Neolithic to the middle of the Bronze Age in northern Schleswig, and from the Late Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age on Djursland. Other crops come and go – einkorn, bread wheat, spelt, millet, flax, oats and gold of pleasure. Hulled barley is largely conspicuous by its absence. Well-developed arable weed floras appear first in the Early Bronze Age – arable weeds are very scarce at Neolithic sites. There is evidence of improvement of arable soils using fen peat and household refuse and manure. The situation appears somewhat more complex in Denmark than that described for Sweden. The most striking difference is seen in the behaviour of hulled barley, which becomes massively dominant in Sweden in the course of the Bronze Age, whereas its role in Denmark is much more modest.     

青海互助县金禅口遗址发掘简报

2012年7月至9月,为探索麦类作物和外来畜养动物的传播途径,青海省文物考古研究所对位于青海互助土族自治县加定镇加塘村的金禅口遗址进行了考古发掘。共揭露齐家文化时期房址5座、灰坑15个、墓葬1座和陶窑2座,出土陶器、石器、骨器、铜器、木器等200多件及大量动、植物遗存。本文对其中的典型遗存进行了详细介绍。通过与邻近地区的同类文化遗存进行比照,本遗址出土的齐家文化典型器型与其存在许多相似之处。选取炭化植物种子10个样品,小麦、大麦、粟和黍,经北京大学考古文博学院碳十四实验室进行测年,数据结果的年代范围在2200~1750BC。综合考虑基本上反映了金禅口遗址齐家文化聚落的绝对年代。遗址中出土的众多细石器和大量动物骨骼反映了发达的畜牧业和狩猎经济。而通过对遗址中采集的土样轻浮物进行鉴定,显示碳化农作物种子10163粒,占出土碳化植物种子总数的90.4%,表明采集业是当时经济生活的重要补充,但农业仍是主要的生计方式。由此可见,金禅口遗址所处的自然环境决定了齐家文化时期先民的生业模式复杂多样。     

Archaeobotanical investigation of two Scythian-Sarmatian period pits in eastern Ukraine: Implications for floodplain cereal cultivation

Abstract

Two Scythian-Sarmatian period pits dated to the 5th–1st centuries b.c. were discovered while excavating the Chalcolithic site of Zanovskoe, located on a floodplain of the Donets River in the steppe region of eastern Ukraine, Lugansk oblast. No contemporaneous settlement sites are known in the region. Archaeobotanical analysis was conducted on charred plant macrofossils recovered from pits at the site. The crop assemblage consisted of hulled barley and broomcorn millet, from which AMS radiocarbon dates were obtained. Other identified plant species mostly constituted arable weeds and wetland plants. The archaeobotanical assemblage implies floodplain cereal cultivation strategies among the steppe inhabitants during this period.     

Early Processed Triticeae Food Remains in The Yanghai Tombs,Xinjiang, China

Visible food remains can provide evidence regarding ancient food processing, the spread of cereals and cultural communication. Some desiccated food remains were discovered in the Yanghai Tombs, Turpan district, in Xinjiang, China (2600–2900 bp ). These food remains were analysed by Fourier transform infrared (FT–IR) spectroscopy combined with plant microfossils, including starch grains and cross cells of pericarp from the cereal bran fragments. The results showed that these food remains were cooked dough food made from wheat (Triticum aestivum) and barley (Hordeum spp.). The cross‐sections of these remains look very dense, not porous under a microscope, which suggests that no fermentation had happened, so these foodstuffs may be some kind of flatbread. Although wheat and barley had been introduced into China by at least the third millennium bc , these remains are still the earliest known direct evidence that wheat and barley were ground into flour and then processed as foodstuffs in north‐western China.     

From the modern to the archaeological: starch grains from millets and their wild relatives in China

Starch grains from 31 modern samples of millets derived from the seeds of 7 species within the genus Setaria and 2 species within the genus Panicum were analyzed to determine diagnostic morphological characteristics. Ancient starch grains recovered from a sample of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) excavated from the Cishan site (10.0-7.6 cal yr BP) in the North China Plain were then subjected to the same analyses to determine the differences in morphologies, if any, between modern and ancient samples. The data indicate that morphological features, and particularly surface and fissure features, will allow for solid identifications of ancient millet starches, while size classes will be helpful, but will not be dependable taxonomic indicators.     

Influence of grinding on the preservation of starch grains from rice

China is a major centre for rice domestication, where starch grain analysis has been widely applied to archaeological grinding tools to gain information about plant use by ancient Chinese societies. However, few rice starch grains have been identified to date. To understand this apparent scarcity of starch grains from rice, dry- and wet-grinding experiments with stone tools were carried out on four types of cereals: rice (Oryza sativa L.), foxtail millet (Setaria italica), Job's tears (Coix lacryma-jobi L.) and barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). The results reveal that dry-grinding produces significant damage to starches to the point where they may be undetected in archaeological samples, while wet-grinding causes only slight morphological changes to the starch grains. Moreover, rice starch grains have the most substantial alterations from dry-grinding, possibly impeding their identification. These findings provide a possible means to explain the relative scarcity of rice starch grains recovered from archaeological grinding tools, which it is suggested was caused by the use of the dry-grinding technique. Therefore, it is suggested that rice starch grains have been likely underrepresented in the archaeological record, and previous interpretations of starch analyses need to be reconsidered.     

Does size matter: the role and significance of cereal grains in the Indus civilization

Cereal grains play a pivotal role in the rise and character of the Indus civilization. Archaeologists have traditionally focused their attention on the large-grained crops of wheat and barley while often minimizing the importance of the smaller-grained millets. Both environmental and cultural variables influence crop selection in the past as well as today. This paper explores the role and significance of cereal grain size during the evolution of the Indus civilization.     

Ancient DNA in archaeological wheat grains: preservation conditions and the study of pre-Hispanic agriculture on the island of Gran Canaria (Spain)

The recovery of ancient DNA from archaeological wheat samples under different preservation conditions was assessed using a number of genetic markers. It was possible to amplify nuclear DNA from desiccated grains but not from charred. The desiccated grain was from a pre-Hispanic grain silo in Gran Canaria and showed excellent DNA preservation, enabling the amplification of the ribosomal DNA markers IGS and ITS, the upstream region of the HMW-glutenin locus and single-locus nuclear microsatellites. Our results demonstrated the presence of both durum and bread wheat in an assemblage of naked grain. We were also able to identify different genotypes in durum wheat and compare these with extant landraces, providing insights into the agrarian practices of the ancient Canarians and the origin of their crops.     

Stable Isotope Analysis of Human and Animal Remains at the Qijiaping Site in Middle Gansu,China

Intercontinental exchanges between communities living in different parts of Eurasia during the late prehistoric period have become increasingly popular as a topic of archaeological research. The Qijia culture, found in northwest China, is one of the key archaeological cultures that can shed light on trans‐Eurasian exchange because a variety of imports are found in this cultural context. These imports include new cereals and animals, which suggest that human diets may also have changed compared with previous periods. To understand human and animal diets of the Qijia culture, carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios from human and animal skeletal remains were analysed from the type site of the Qijia culture at Qijiaping. The results demonstrate that human diet at the site mainly consisted of millet and animals fed on millet. C₃ cereals, such as wheat and barley, did not contribute significantly to human diet, and no isotopic differences were found between adult and subadult diets. Furthermore, three outlying human results raise the possibility of exogenous individuals, perhaps in relation to the parallel movement of animals, crops and goods. This study provides human and animal dietary information for evaluating the nature of exchange and diffusion in eastern Eurasia at this time. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experiments with Lithic Tools: Understanding Starch Residues from Crop Harvesting

Stone knives were used widely in Neolithic East Asia, presumably in the harvesting of grain crops, but their function has not been clearly understood due to the lack of study of residues from these tools. To address this issue, starch grain analysis was employed to study the residues on the surface of ancient stone knives and large amounts of starches were recovered. The sources of these starches, however, were not well understood, because harvesting of crops involves the cutting of stems rather than direct contact with starchy seeds. To determine whether harvesting could deposit these types of residues, we designed a simulation experiment using stone flakes to harvest ears of wheat, rice and foxtail millet, then analysed the residues on both the flakes and in the plant tissues. A large number of starch grains were found in the stems, including both typical morphotypes from seeds and newly described types that occur only in stems, which can be used as indicators of harvesting. Our study demonstrates that starch grains from residues on the surfaces of archaeological stone knives can indicate not only that the tools were used to harvest ears, but also the type of crops harvested.     

Cereals,calories and change: exploring approaches to quantification in Indus archaeobotany

Several major cereal groups have been identified as staples used by the pre-urban, urban and post-urban phase populations of the Indus Civilisation (3200–1500 BCE): wheat, barley, a range of small hulled millets and also rice, though their proportional exploitation is variable across space and over time. Traditional quantification methods examine the frequency, intensity and proportionality of the use of these crops and help ascertain the ‘relative importance’ of these cereals for Indus populations. However, this notion of ‘importance’ is abstracted from the daily lives of the people using these crops and may be biased by the differential production (as well as archaeological survival) of individual cereals. This paper outlines an alternative approach to quantifying Indus cereals by investigating proportions of calories. Cereals are predominantly composed of carbohydrates and therefore provided much of the daily caloric intake among many late Holocene farming populations. The four major cereal groups cultivated by Indus farmers, however, vary greatly in terms of calories per grain, and this has an impact on their proportional input to past diets. This paper demonstrates that, when converted to proportions of calories, the perceived ‘importance’ of cereals from five Indus sites changes dramatically, reducing the role of the previously dominant small hulled millet species and elevating the role of Triticoid grains. Although other factors will also have affected how a farmer perceived the role and importance of a crop, including its ecological tolerances, investments required to grow it, and the crop’s role in the economy, this papers suggests that some consideration of what cereals meant in terms of daily lives is needed alongside the more abstracted quantification methods that have traditionally been applied.