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[QUOTE]Originally posted by DD'eDeN: [QB] East Africa - Early Malaysian crops in Madagascar http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/05/25/1522714113.full One line of evidence that has been largely overlooked in archaeological investigations of Madagascar and, indeed, eastern Africa more broadly is ancient plants. However, it is estimated that some 10% of Madagascar’s flora was introduced from elsewhere (10), and plant introductions include a significant number of staple crops, spices, and arable weeds of Asian origin (11). Historically or currently important crops on Madagascar, like banana (Musa spp.), yam (Dioscorea alata), taro (Colocasia esculenta), and coconut (Cocos nucifera), are Southeast Asian cultivars (12, 13). Asian rice (Oryza sativa), which was domesticated separately in East and South Asia but is the basis of traditional agriculture across much of Madagascar today, was also widely grown in Southeast Asia by the first millennium CE (14⇓–16). Other Asian crops, like mung bean (Vigna radiata) and Asian cotton (Gossypium arboreum), are also cultivated on Madagascar. The fact that early crop introductions to Madagascar may have arrived with Austronesian settlers seems particularly feasible given that Austronesian expansion into the Pacific was linked to the spread of a similar suite of cultivars (17). To directly explore early cultivated plants on Madagascar and their potential to inform on its colonization history, we collected new archaeobotanical data from the island as well as contemporaneous sites on the African mainland coast (Kenya and Tanzania) and nearshore islands (Pemba, Zanzibar, and Mafia) and the Comoros. Research across various Old World sites suggests that exotic crops introduced to a region as new plants usually featured as a minor component of subsistence systems for centuries and, in some cases, millennia after arrival before becoming a major resource (24, 25). This pattern is seen, for example, with the introduction of Asian crops at Roman Period port sites on the Red Sea (26, 27). The arrival at coastal sites in eastern Africa of rice and mung bean together with Near Eastern crops, like wheat and pea, can be understood as part of the broader acquisition of exotic goods that occurred with eastern Africa’s entry into the Indian Ocean commercial sphere (28). In contrast, the overwhelming dominance of Asian crops in the earliest records of the Comoros and Madagascar is consistent with patterns observed when crops move through human colonization. Such a pattern is observed in Japan, where the immigration of new groups from the mainland after approximately 2,800 y B.P. is associated with the arrival of wet rice cultivation (29). It is also observed, for example, in Neolithic Europe, where the first crops are entirely Near Eastern, reflecting the arrival of migrants from this region (30). The presence of Asian crops apparently brought by migrating people on the Comoros and Madagascar is important given that Madagascar is known to have been colonized by settlers from Asia. The findings, nonetheless, require careful consideration given that there are diverse potential sources for the crops and that the present day inhabitants of the Comoros speak Bantu rather than Austronesian languages (31). Rice and mung bean are the two main Asian food crops identified in archaeological assemblages from the Comoros and Madagascar. Fig. 3 presents a summary of Indian Ocean sites at which these two crops have been identified. Given the paucity of data for the period of 650–1200 CE, sites from an earlier period, 500 BCE to 650 CE, are also included for comparison. The fact that the combination of rice and mung bean is rare in the Near East and Arabia is notable. Indeed, it is only recorded at two Roman-period sites on the Egyptian side of the Red Sea, where it was associated with the presence of Indian traders engaged in the pepper trade (26, 27). At these sites, the crops are found in small quantities within overall assemblages dominated by Mediterranean crops. Mung bean seems to be absent from Medieval cookbooks of the Islamic world, and these sources also indicate that rice played a minor role in the cuisine of the Arab world (32). Although rice was adopted into cultivation in parts of Iran and Mesopotamia more than 2,000 y ago, it was not a staple in the Middle East in the Medieval Period (33). [IMG]http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/05/25/1522714113/F5.large.jpg[/IMG] Fig. 3. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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