Phytolith evidence for the pastoral origins of multi-cropping in Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq)

AbstractMulti-cropping was vital for provisioning large population centers across ancient Eurasia. In Southwest Asia, multi-cropping, in which grain, fodder, or forage could be reliably cultivated during dry summer months, only became possible with the translocation of summer grains, like millet, from Africa and East Asia. Despite some textual sources suggesting millet cultivation as early as the third millennium BCE, the absence of robust archaeobotanical evidence for millet in semi-arid Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq) has led most archaeologists to conclude that millet was only grown in the region after the mid-first millennium BCE introduction of massive, state-sponsored irrigation systems. Here, we present the earliest micro-botanical evidence of the summer grain broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) in Mesopotamia, identified using phytoliths in dung-rich sediments from Khani Masi, a mid-second millennium BCE site located in northern Iraq. Taphonomic factors associated with the region’s agro-pastoral systems have likely made millet challenging to recognize using conventional macrobotanical analyses, and millet may therefore have been more widespread and cultivated much earlier in Mesopotamia than is currently recognized. The evidence for pastoral-related multi-cropping in Bronze Age Mesopotamia provides an antecedent to first millennium BCE agricultural intensification and ties Mesopotamia into our rapidly evolving understanding of early Eurasian food globalization.

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Ancient DNA analysis of Panicum miliaceum (broomcorn millet) from a Bronze Age cemetery in Xinjiang, China

Vegetation History and Archaeobotany ◽

10.1007/s00334-016-0561-3 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 25 (5) ◽

pp. 469-477 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Chunxiang Li ◽

Yu Dong ◽

Minxuan Liu ◽

Ping Lu ◽

Wenying Li ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Ancient Dna ◽

Dna Analysis ◽

Panicum Miliaceum ◽

Broomcorn Millet ◽

Ancient Dna Analysis

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Integrating Satellite, UAV, and Ground-Based Remote Sensing in Archaeology: An Exploration of Pre-Modern Land Use in Northeastern Iraq

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13245119 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (24) ◽

pp. 5119

Author(s):

Elise Jakoby Laugier ◽

Jesse Casana

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Land Use ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Remote Sensing Data ◽

Aerial Photographs ◽

Southwest Asia ◽

First Millennium ◽

Second Millennium Bce ◽

Intensive Land Use ◽

Remote Sensing Methods

Satellite remote sensing is well demonstrated to be a powerful tool for investigating ancient land use in Southwest Asia. However, few regional studies have systematically integrated satellite-based observations with more intensive remote sensing technologies, such as drone-deployed multispectral sensors and ground-based geophysics, to explore off-site areas. Here, we integrate remote sensing data from a variety of sources and scales including historic aerial photographs, modern satellite imagery, drone-deployed sensors, and ground-based geophysics to explore pre-modern land use along the Upper Diyala/Sirwan River in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Our analysis reveals an incredible diversity of land use features, including canals, qanats, trackways, and field systems, most of which likely date to the first millennium CE, and demonstrate the potential of more intensive remote sensing methods to resolve land use features. Our results align with broader trends across ancient Southwest Asia that document the most intensive land use in the first millennium BCE through the first millennium CE. Land use features dating to the earlier Bronze Age (fourth through second millennium BCE) remain elusive and will likely require other investigative approaches.

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The Late Bronze Age in the West and the Aegean

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195376142.013.0015 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Trevor Bryce

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Western Anatolia ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

The West ◽

Population Groups ◽

Wide Range ◽

First Millennium ◽

Second Millennium Bce

This article presents data on western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age, wherein it was the homeland of a wide range of states and population groups. The most important and most powerful of these was a group of kingdoms that are attested in Hittite texts as the Arzawa Lands. Most scholars associate the development of these kingdoms with Luwian-speaking populations who had occupied large parts of Anatolia from (at least) the early second millennium BCE. The most enduring link between Anatolia's Late Bronze Age civilizations and their first-millennium-BCE successors is provided by the Lukka people, one of the Luwian-speaking population groups of southwestern Anatolia. They were almost certainly among the most important agents for the continuity and spread of Luwian culture in southern Anatolia throughout the first millennium BCE.

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The Excavation of a Settlement of the Later Bronze Age and Iron Age at Myrehead, Falkirk District

Glasgow Archaeological Journal ◽

10.3366/gas.1983.10.10.41 ◽

1983 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 41-71 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

G J Barclay

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Farming System ◽

Activity Period ◽

Limited Evidence ◽

Ring Groove ◽

Domestic Activity ◽

First Millennium ◽

First Millennium Bc ◽

Actual Settlement

SUMMARY Myrehead has revealed the eroded remnants of activity from the Beaker period (Period A) onwards, with actual settlement evinced only from about the early first millennium be. The three houses and the cooking pits of Period B may have been constructed and used sequentially. This open settlement was probably replaced during the mid first millennium bc, possibly without a break, by a palisaded enclosure (Period C), which may have contained a ring-groove house and a four-post structure. Continued domestic activity (Period D) was suggested by a single pit outside the enclosure, dated to the late first millennium bc/early first millennium ad. The limited evidence of the economy of the settlements suggests a mixed farming system.

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Art and Iconography

The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190499341.013.23 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 348-369

Author(s):

Eric Gubel

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

North Africa ◽

Sixth Century ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

Cultural Interaction ◽

First Millennium ◽

Complex Patterns

Rooted in Late Bronze Age Levantine traditions, Phoenician art emerges in the early first millennium bce, spiced with new elements adopted and adapted from contemporary Egyptian models, while also permeable to influence from artistic trends popular with neighboring cultures and overseas recipients of Phoenician luxurious exports. During its acme between the late ninth and early seventh centuries bce, the art shared a common repertoire of motifs among sculptors, metalsmiths, ivory carvers, and seal cutters in a predominantly Egyptianizing style. Mass-produced terracotta plaques, figurines, and the minor arts displayed a more diversified array of autochthonous characteristics. In line with the evolution of sculpture, the Cypriot component was definitely replaced by Greek idioms from the later sixth century bce onward. If Punic art cannot possibly be defined as a mere perpetuation of the Phoenician production, and was impacted by more complex patterns of cultural interaction (e.g. North Africa, Iberia), the latter’s heritage is undeniable in many artistic media.

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Ancient genomic time transect from the Central Asian Steppe unravels the history of the Scythians

Science Advances ◽

10.1126/sciadv.abe4414 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (13) ◽

pp. eabe4414

Author(s):

Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone ◽

Elmira Khussainova ◽

Nurzhibek Kahbatkyzy ◽

Lyazzat Musralina ◽

Maria A. Spyrou ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Gene Pools ◽

Social Rules ◽

Eurasian Steppe ◽

Central Asian ◽

Genome Wide ◽

Genome Wide Data ◽

History Of ◽

First Millennium

The Scythians were a multitude of horse-warrior nomad cultures dwelling in the Eurasian steppe during the first millennium BCE. Because of the lack of first-hand written records, little is known about the origins and relations among the different cultures. To address these questions, we produced genome-wide data for 111 ancient individuals retrieved from 39 archaeological sites from the first millennia BCE and CE across the Central Asian Steppe. We uncovered major admixture events in the Late Bronze Age forming the genetic substratum for two main Iron Age gene-pools emerging around the Altai and the Urals respectively. Their demise was mirrored by new genetic turnovers, linked to the spread of the eastern nomad empires in the first centuries CE. Compared to the high genetic heterogeneity of the past, the homogenization of the present-day Kazakhs gene pool is notable, likely a result of 400 years of strict exogamous social rules.

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Hydrogen isotopic fractionations during syntheses of lipid biomarkers in the seeds of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) under controlled environmental conditions

Organic Geochemistry ◽

10.1016/j.orggeochem.2021.104221 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 154 ◽

pp. 104221

Author(s):

Jérémy Jacob ◽

Nicolas Bossard ◽

Thierry Bariac ◽

Valery Terwilliger ◽

Philippe Biron ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Environmental Conditions ◽

Lipid Biomarkers ◽

Panicum Miliaceum ◽

Broomcorn Millet

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Later Bronze Age Activity in the Somerset Levels

The Antiquaries Journal ◽

10.1017/s0003581500021065 ◽

1972 ◽

Vol 52 (2) ◽

pp. 269-275 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

John M. Coles

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Human Activity ◽

Sixth Century ◽

Third Century ◽

Raised Bog ◽

First Millennium ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship

SummaryThe evidence of human activity in the Somerset Levels in the first millennium B.C. consists of wooden trackways laid across areas of developing raised bog, and joining small settlements on the higher, drier lands of the Poldens and the Wedmore ridge. The excavation of one of these tracks, of the sixth century B.C., is described. Stray finds of weapons and tools continue to be made by peat-cutters and by archaeologists; the most recent of these finds are a hazelwood peg or truncheon, and a sycamore tent peg, of the fourth or third century B.C. The relationship of the trackways and other finds to the marshside villages at Meare remains to be established.

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