coinvolgenti e soprattutto ci indicano il dove e suggeriscono il come.
Il quando è circa 5.000 anni fa.
Il luogo è il Kazakhstan, in un corridoio Est-Ovest nel quale si svilupperà la storica Via della Seta.
Il ruolo dei pastori nomadi fu un punto chiave dell'espansione dell'agricoltura.
Il grano, coltivato 6.000 anni fa nell'Asia sud occidentale, era assente in Cina prima del 2.500 a.C. mentre il miglio - coltivato in cina nell'8.000 a.C.
era assente nell'Asia sud occidentale prima del 2000 a.C.
Questo studio documenta la trasmissione attraverso il Kazakhstan di queste coltivazioni nel 2.700/2500 a.C (circa 5.000 anni fa).
Ancient nomads
spread earliest domestic grains
along Silk Road
Charred grains of barley, millet and wheat deposited nearly 5,000 years ago at campsites in the high plains of Kazakhstan show that nomadic sheepherders played a surprisingly important role in the early spread of domesticated crops throughout a mountainous east-west corridor along the historic Silk Road, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis. This is a photo of the long-term settlement stratigraphy at the site of Tasbas.
Mudbrick/clay oven (visible on right lower portion) contained earliest evidence for grain farming [Credit: Paula Doumani/ Washington University in St. Louis]
"Our findings indicate that ancient nomadic pastoralists were key players in an east-west network that linked innovations and commodities between present-day China and southwest Asia," said study co-author Michael Frachetti, PhD, an associate professor of archaeology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University and principal investigator on the research project. "Ancient wheat and broomcorn millet, recovered in nomadic campsites in Kazakhstan, show that prehistoric herders in Central Eurasia had incorporated both regional crops into their economy and rituals nearly 5,000 years ago, pushing back the chronology of interaction along the territory of the 'Silk Road' more than 2,000 years," Frachetti said.
The study, to be published April 2 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, establishes that several strains of ancient grains and peas had made their way across Eurasia thousands of years earlier than previously documented.
While these crops have been known to exist much earlier in ancient China and Southwest Asia, finding them intermingled in the Bronze Age burials and households of nomadic pastoralists provides some of the earliest concrete signs for east-west interaction in the vast expanse of Eurasian mountains and the first botanical evidence for farming among Bronze Age nomads.
This is a panoramic view of the Byan Zhurek valley and setting near Tasbas [Credit: Michael Frachetti/Washington University in St. Louis] Bread wheat, cultivated at least 6,000 years ago in Southwest Asia, was absent in China before 2500 B.C. while broomcorn millet, domesticated 8,000 years ago in China, is missing in southwest Asia before 2000 B.C.
This study documents that ancient grains from eastern China and soutwest Asia had made their way to Kazakhstan in the center of the continent by 2700-2500 B.C. (nearly 5,000 years ago).
"This study starts to rewrite the model for economic change across Eurasia," said first author Robert Spengler, PhD, a paleoethnobotanist and research associate in Arts & Sciences at WUSTL. "It illustrates that nomads had diverse economic systems and were important for reshaping economic spheres more generally." Findings are based on archaeobotanical data collected from four Bronze Age pastoralist campsites in Central Eurasian steppe/mountains: Tasbas and Begash in the highlands of Kazakhstan and Ojakly and Site 1211/1219 in Turkmenistan.
"This is one of the first systematic applications of archaeobotany in the region, making the potential for further future discovery very exciting," Spengler said. Frachetti and a team of WUSTL researchers led the on-site excavations, working closely with archaeologists based in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Italy. Spengler conducted the paleoethnobotany laboratory work at WUSTL, under the directorship of Gayle J. Fritz, PhD, professor of archaeology and expert in human-plant relationships. "Finding this diverse crop assemblage at Tasbas and Begash illustrates first evidence for the westward spread of East Asian and Southwest Asian crops eastward, and the surprise is that it is nomads who are the agents of change," Frachetti said.
Source: Washington University in St. Louis [April 01, 2014]
Where pastoralist met farmer and East met West (Spengler et al. 2014)
Archaeobotanical data from Central Eurasian pastoralist campsites have major implications for our understanding of late prehistoric agriculture across Asia.Sites like Tasbas and Begash illustrate the earliest acquisition of domesticated crops by mobile pastoralists and illustrate their capacity to participate in exchanges that bridged East Asian and Central Asian farming cultures by the early third millennium BC. Mobile pastoralists living in (southern) Central Asian alluvial fans and along the mountainous spine of Central Eurasia also integrated farming into their own domestic strategies (at least) by the mid second millenniumBC. Their pastoral mobility and the formation of extensive networks throughout the IAMC helped spread particular grain morphotypes and a mixed plant cohort of wheat, barley, millet and green peas through the mountains between Xinjiang, China and southwest Asia in the second millennium BC. The seasonal campsites of Begash, Tasbas, Ojakly and Site 1211/1219 are the earliest sites thus far reported to break down the strict polarization between nomads and farmers in prehistoric Central Eurasia. They also transform our comprehension of the vast arena of interaction that defines this region in ancient times.Related:
- Frachetti on the multiregional emergence of mobile pastoralism
- Horse not important for the emergence of steppe pastoralism
- Michael Frachetti on the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor
Early agriculture and crop transmission among Bronze Age mobile pastoralists of Central Eurasia
Robert Spengler et al.
Archaeological research in Central Eurasia is exposing unprecedented scales of trans-regional interaction and technology transfer between East Asia and southwest Asia deep into the prehistoric past. This article presents a new archaeobotanical analysis from pastoralist campsites in the mountain and desert regions of Central Eurasia that documents the oldest known evidence for domesticated grains and farming among seasonally mobile herders. Carbonized grains from the sites of Tasbas and Begash illustrate the first transmission of southwest Asian and East Asian domesticated grains into the mountains of Inner Asia in the early third millennium BC. By the middle second millennium BC, seasonal camps in the mountains and deserts illustrate that Eurasian herders incorporated the cultivation of millet, wheat, barley and legumes into their subsistence strategy. These findings push back the chronology for domesticated plant use among Central Eurasian pastoralists by approximately 2000 years. Given the geography, chronology and seed morphology of these data, we argue that mobile pastoralists were key agents in the spread of crop repertoires and the transformation of agricultural economies across Asia from the third to the second millennium BC.
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