Low intensity cultivation and domestication: pathways to millet domestication in India and China

Summary

The steppe zone of northern China and the savanna zones of India both produced indigenous domestication of numerous small-grained Panicoid cereals, i.e. millets. This presentation will explore parallels in the processes of domestication of these crops, including comparisons of ecological characteristics of wild progenitors, the seasonal mobility of early cultivators, and shared domestication traits and the current state of the their documentation in archaeobotanical evidence. Millets for the most part lent themselves to low intensity forms of cultivation, indicated for example by high levels of grain immaturity, and short seasonal labour investments that fit well with seasonal population dispersal and cache storage. Nevertheless, parallels in the evolution of non-dormant, larger grains, and more communal systems of storage and processing can all be inferred from the limited available archaeobotanical evidence. This contrasts with the more intensively managed, and often household focused processing of early large-grained cereals such as rice and wheat.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Seeds of the Past, Seeds of the Future: Papers in Honor of Steven A. Weber

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15796