Modeling the Spread of Crops across Eurasia

Summary

Understanding the routes and the timing of the spread of western Eurasia domesticates to Asia and of Asian domesticates to Europe and the Near East has become an increasing focus of research. To date, however, we have had little understanding of the types of constraints that farmers may have faced as they moved these domesticates into the challenging environments of Central Asia. The spread of many of these domesticates also took place during a time of marked climatic change. Although it has been hypothesized that these climatic changes may have impacted the nature and the manner of the spread in East Asia, a dynamic model of how crop niches changed throughout time has not yet been applied to Eurasia. This paper describes the creation of a multi-millennial thermal model that compliments Naomi Miller’s pioneering work on outlining how patterns of rainfall limited the spread of millets.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• 2017 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Naomi F. Miller

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14896