West to east - the spread of wheat and barley cultivation across Eurasia

Summary

By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the South-west Asian crops wheat (Triticum spp.) and barley (Hordeum vulgare) are being cultivated in much of Central, South and East Asia. How did these crops spread from west to east? Can we find evidence of the routes of spread through the archaeogenetic analysis of these South-west Asian cereals? We describe our analyses of Eurasian barley and wheat using microsatellite and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs); this data is enabling us to elucidate possible routes of spread across Eurasia. We are primarily studying extant cereal landraces, with the inclusion of some historic and archaeobotanical material. Analysis of SNPs involved in flowering time genes is revealing the role environmental adaptation has in the establishment of cereal cultivation in new areas. We also present our analyses of the relationship between wild and cultivated barleys, and draw conclusions about the origins of wild barleys in the Tibetan Plateau.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Food Globalisation in Prehistory

Keywords