quote:The study of plant exploitation and early use of cereals in Africa has seen over the years a great input from charred and desiccated macrobotanical remains. This paper presents the results of one of the few examples in Africa of microbotanical analyses. Three grave contexts of phytolith-rich deposits and the dental calculus of 20 individuals were analysed from two Neolithic cemeteries in North and Central Sudan. The radiocarbon-dated phytoliths from the burial samples show the presence of Near East domestic cereals in Northern Sudan at least 7000 years ago. Phytoliths also indicate the exploitation of wild, savannah-adapted millets in Central Sudan between 7500 and 6500 years ago. The calculus samples contained starch grains from wheat/barley, pulses and millets, as well as panicoid phytoliths. This evidence shows that Near East domestic cereals were consumed in Northern Africa at least 500 years earlier than previously thought.
—Marco Madella , Juan José García-Granero, Welmoed A. Out, Philippa Ryan, Donatella Usai Published: October 22, 2014
Based on Fuller’s work with other grains, the domestication process often took around two to three thousand years. “So, if it’s a similar rate with sorghum,” according to Fuller, “then I’d expect the process to start at least 1,000 up to 1,500 years earlier, meaning that if this site dates to 3,200 BCE, then we should be looking for sites, which have earlier stages of the process going back to 4,000 to 4,500 BCE.”
To confirm this process, more plant remains from earlier and later sites need to be analyzed.
What is clear, however, is that the Neolithic populations in Sudan figured out how to domesticate sorghum independent of earlier cereal crop domestication in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Mansamusa Member # 22474
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This kind of evidence rewrites history. Before this, the Badarians were seen as the first to use domestic cereals in that region.
Ish Gebor Member # 18264
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quote:Originally posted by Mansamusa: This kind of evidence rewrites history. Before this, the Badarians were seen as the first to use domestic cereals in that region.
Similairly was discussed and debate before, last year or two years ago. People apposed it.
Doug M Member # 7650
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There have been other studies before about earlier evidence for local domestication of wild grasses and grains in Africa before the Neolithic. For example, at one time you had folks talking about Wadi Kubbaniya having evidence of harvesting of wild grains using sickles dating back to the paleolithic.
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Ethiopians are cultivating rice for at least 6 thousand years. They took the rice with them when they settled in Egypt.
Andromeda2025 Member # 22772
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The consumption of wild cereals among prehistoric hunters and gatherers appears to be far more ancient than previously thought, according to a University of Calgary archaeologist who has found the oldest example of extensive reliance on cereal and root staples in the diet of early Homo sapiens more than 100,000 years ago.
Julio Mercader, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Tropical Archaeology in the U of C's Department of Archaeology, recovered dozens of stone tools from a deep cave in {{{Mozambique}}}} showing that wild sorghum, the ancestor of the chief cereal consumed today in sub-Saharan Africa for flours, breads, porridges and alcoholic beverages, was in Homo sapiens' pantry along with the African wine palm, the false banana, pigeon peas, wild oranges and the African "potato." This is the earliest direct evidence of humans using pre-domesticated cereals anywhere in the world. Mercader's findings are published in the December 18 issue of the research journal Science.
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