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The Inner Asian Mountain Corridor (IAMC) has been identified as a major pathway for the westward dispersal of millet from Northern China, where it was initially cultivated. Cross-disciplinary investigations are necessary to distinguish cultivated millet taxa from their wild relatives and to clarify the social context underlying millet adoption in novel environments. Despite the ambiguity in distinguishing Setaria italica from Panicum miliaceum or other Setaria species using conventional analysis of charred macro remains, recent attention has focused on the time gap between the introduction of S. italica to IAMC following P. miliaceum. Here, we employed a pottery impression casting method on materials from four Bronze Age sites in eastern/southeastern Kazakhstan to investigate the surface textures of grain impressions on the surface of pottery containers. We successfully identified both millets (Setaeria and Panicum) from three of the sites, Begash, Tasbas, and Dali in the IAMC. Based on our findings, two species of millet were introduced to the region within a much shorter range of time than previously estimated. In addition, the current evidence supports the premise that these cereals were likely utilized for human consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) was first domesticated in China and dispersed westward via Central Asia in the 3rd millennium BC, reaching Europe in the 2nd millennium BC. North of the Black Sea, the North Pontic steppe and forest-steppe areas are key regions for understanding the westward dispersal of millet, as evidenced by the earliest direct radiocarbon dates on European millet grains, which we present here. Examining various lines of evidence relevant to crop cultivation, animal husbandry, contacts and lifestyles, we explore the regional dynamics of the adoption of millet, broadening knowledge about past subsistence strategies related to the 'millet farmers/consumers' who inhabited the northern Black Sea region during the Bronze and Iron Ages. Our re-evaluation of crop evidence contributes to ongoing discussions on the mobility of prehistoric communities in the Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe—for instance, on whether millet was linked to full-time mobile pastoralists, who occasionally grew or only consumed it, or whether it was linked to sedentary farmers and cattle herders who regularly cultivated millet, among other crops. From the Bronze Age to the Late Antique, this crop is attested under different socio-cultural conditions that suggest it was adaptable to stockbreeding and the natural environment and consumed since the mid 2nd millennium BC in the northern Black Sea region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale: A range of important small seeded C4 crops were domesticated in Africa, but little is known about their carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios (δ13C and δ15N values). Understanding natural isotopic variability within and among millets has the potential to help us to understand the conditions under which ancient cereals were grown and has significant implications for the interpretation of ancient diets based on stable isotope signatures. Methods: We conducted carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of modern and historical pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum, n = 108) and finger millet (Eleusine coracana, n = 17) seed samples sourced from the United States Department of Agriculture as well as the Harlan Collection curated at the Crop Evolution Laboratory Herbarium at the University of Illinois. Results: The millet species have significantly different mean carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios over broad temporal and spatial scales. We also found substantial isotopic variation within species (range of 1.9‰ and 8.5‰ in δ13C and δ15N values, respectively). Both water availability and growing season temperature significantly affected the P. glaucum δ13C and δ15N values; cumulative annual precipitation was positively correlated with both seed δ13C and δ15N values, while temperature was positively correlated with δ15N values but negatively correlated with seed δ13C values. Conclusions: The importance of both temperature and precipitation as predictors of δ13C and δ15N values in millets suggests that C4 plants may be more sensitive to environmental parameters than previously appreciated. Given the high degree of carbon and nitrogen isotope variability among accessions of these species, it is imperative that site‐relevant plant isotope ratios are used for making isotope‐based paleo‐dietary predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the context of the long-distance translocation of crops in prehistory. We draw upon contrasts in the isotopic signatures of Southwest Asian crops, including wheat and barley – C3 plants, compared to Asian millets – C4 plants, to investigate a key region of trans-Eurasian exchange, the Chinese province of Gansu. The isotopic results demonstrate that in Gansu province prior to 2000 cal. bc, the staples were millets. Between 2000 and 1800 cal. bc, there was a significant shift in staple foods towards the Southwest Asian crops. In the broader regional context, however, it would seem that these novel crops were not consumed in large quantities in many parts of China during the second millennium bc. This suggests that, while the Southwest Asian crops were adopted and became a staple food source in Gansu province in the second millennium bc, they were disregarded as staple foods elsewhere in the same millennium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of agriculture is an important topic of archaeological research, but relatively few studies address the drivers behind the spread of specific species empirically. Here we use published isotopic data to consider whether the millets spread from their putative domestication centre in the East to western Eurasia for use as a staple food. We show that the consumption of significant quantities of millet was both far more sporadic than the earliest appearance of millet might suggest and delayed. This is not to say that millet was not consumed, rather that any consumption was below the level of isotopic detectability, and thus millet cannot generally be considered a staple. Nevertheless, individuals who regularly consumed millet occur both as typical members of their population and as unusual individuals. The reasons for this pattern open up new questions about, and avenues of research into, the spread of agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is a growing body of archaeobotanical evidence for the harvesting of millet in Eurasia prior to 5,000 cal. BC. Yet direct evidence for the extent of millet consumption in this time period is rare. This contradiction may be due to millet crops making only a minor contribution to the diet before 5,000 BC. In this article, drawing from recent excavations in North China, we present evidence for millet crops making a substantial contribution to human and animal diets in periods, which correspond chronologically with the time depth of the archaeobotanical record. We infer that in eastern Inner Mongolia, human adoption of millets, which may or may be not related to substantial agriculture, happened at the Early Neolithic, with direct dates between 5,800 and 5,300 cal. BC. Am J Phys Anthropol 149:283-290, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2009, Liu and colleagues considered the parallels in topographic context between early farming sites in Southwest Asia and those in North China associated with millet cultivation. This paper extends the geography of this conceptual framework by moving south of the Qinling Mountains-Huai River divide, incorporating sites in South China that are associated with the beginnings of rice exploitation. We highlight the continuous mountain chains running from the Greater Khingan range in the northeast to the Nanling Mountains in the south that give form to China's Fertile Arc. Key sites in the northern part of the Arc are situated along China's ‘Hilly Flanks’ while southern sites are located in a diverse array of landforms including piedmont plains and intermountain basins. A parallel can be drawn in the context of early land choice ecological opportunism between the Fertile Crescent and China's Fertile Arc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]