The virtues of small grain size: Potential pathways to a distinguishing feature of Asian wheats

Increase in grain/seed size recurrently features as a key element in the ‘domestication syndrome’ of plants (cf. Zohary and Hopf 2000; Fuller et al. 2014). In the context of its spread across Eurasia, however, the grain size of one of the world's major crop species underwent a substantial reduction. Between the fifth and second millennia BC, the grain length in a number of species of Triticum, collectively known as free-threshing wheat, decreased by around 30%. In order to understand and help account for this trend, we have obtained direct radiocarbon measurements from 51 charred wheat grains and measured the dimensions of several hundred grains from Asia to establish when and where that size diminution occurred. Our results indicate that the pace of a eastward/southward spread was interrupted around 1800 BC on the borders of the distinct culinary zone recognized by Fuller and Rowlands (2011), but regained pace around 200–300 years later in central-east China with a diminished grain size. We interpret this as evidence of a period of active crop selection to suit culinary needs, and consider whether it constitutes a distinct episode in the general character of genetic intervention in domesticated species.Financial support was provided by the European Research Council, under grant 249642 (FOGLIP), UKIERI – UK & India Collaborative Educational Research Initiative, and the International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability, Washington University in St. Louis

Between China and South Asia: A Middle Asian corridor of crop dispersal and agricultural innovation in the Bronze Age

© The Author(s) 2016. The period from the late third millennium BC to the start of the first millennium AD witnesses the first steps towards food globalization in which a significant number of important crops and animals, independently domesticated within China, India, Africa and West Asia, traversed Central Asia greatly increasing Eurasian agricultural diversity. This paper utilizes an archaeobotanical database (AsCAD), to explore evidence for these crop translocations along southern and northern routes of interaction between east and west. To begin, crop translocations from the Near East across India and Central Asia are examined for wheat (Triticum aestivum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare) from the eighth to the second millennia BC when they reach China. The case of pulses and flax (Linum usitatissimum) that only complete this journey in Han times (206 BC–AD 220), often never fully adopted, is also addressed. The discussion then turns to the Chinese millets, Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica, peaches (Amygdalus persica) and apricots (Armeniaca vulgaris), tracing their movement from the fifth millennium to the second millennium BC when the Panicum miliaceum reaches Europe and Setaria italica Northern India, with peaches and apricots present in Kashmir and Swat. Finally, the translocation of japonica rice from China to India that gave rise to indica rice is considered, possibly dating to the second millennium BC. The routes these crops travelled include those to the north via the Inner Asia Mountain Corridor, across Middle Asia, where there is good evidence for wheat, barley and the Chinese millets. The case for japonica rice, apricots and peaches is less clear, and the northern route is contrasted with that through northeast India, Tibet and west China. Not all these journeys were synchronous, and this paper highlights the selective long-distance transport of crops as an alternative to demic-diffusion of farmers with a defined crop package