Some thoughts on recent publications in archaeobotany and agricultural origins. Opinions and views on the evolution and history of crops. Memorials of archaeobotanists we have lost. The author's research has previously been supported by grants from the ERC and NERC.
Wednesday 15 April 2009
African archaeobotany watch: new data on the First Millennium BC 'crisis'
In the latest issue of Quaternary Research (May 2009), Ngomanda, Katarina Neumann and colleagues report new pollen data from Cameroun which address the nature of vegetation changes between the end of the Second Millennium BC and the end of the First Millennium BC, a period when archaeological settlements are thin on the ground in sub-Saharan West Africa. Elsewhere Neumann and others(Breunig) have written on the apparent crisis in which early agricultural settlements of the West African Neolithic (based on pearl millet agriculture) were abandoned and sedentary agricultural settlement (often with a different, broader agricultural package) re-emerged in the later First Millennium BC. In this paper they suggest some possible reasons. I have been struck by a somewhat parallel abandoment phase in peninsular (savanna) India between ca, 1200 and 600/400 BC, i.e. the Jorwe collapse in the North Deccan and the end of Southern Neolithic. Could there have been a parallel kind of ecological shift involved?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
It’s with great sadness we bring you the news that Gordon Hillman died on Sunday 1 st July. He is survived by his daughter Thilaka, and ...
-
Many have been excited this week about headlines claiming marijuana (Cannabis) was domestication in China 12,000 years (making it the first ...
-
One of the most remarkable, and unusual, pieces of archaeobotany I have seen lately is the report of bringing back to life Pleistocene campi...
-
wild Gallus gallus spadiceus The past week saw the publication of a landmark genomic study on chickens ( Wang et al 2020, Cell Researc...
-
The extensive set of direct dates, on the largest early assemblage of wheat and barley in China, provides important new evidence on the arri...
-
The latest issue of Vegetation History and Archaeobotany (Feb. 2012) is a special issue on Near Eastern origins: From collecting to cult...
No comments:
Post a Comment