9,000-year- old barley consumption in the foothills of central Asia

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Zhou, Xinying; Spengler, Robert N.; Sayfullaev, Bahediyoh; Mutalibjon, Khasanov; Ma, Jian; Liu, Junchi; Shen, Hui; Zhao, Keliang; Chen, Guanhan; Wang, Jian; Stidham, Thomas A.; Xu, Hai; Zhang, Guilin; Yang, Qingjiang; Hou, Yemao; Ma, Jiacheng; Kambarov, Nasibillo; Jiang, Hongen; Maksudov, Farhod; Goldstein, Steven; Wang, Jianxin; Fuller, Dorian Q.; Li, Xiaoqiang
• 署名单位: Chinese Academy of Sciences; Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology & Paleoanthropology, CAS; Northwest University Xi'an; Chinese Academy of Sciences; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, CAS; Max Planck Society; Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan; Tianjin University; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh; University of London; University College London
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-10755
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2424093122
• 发表日期: 2025-09-09
• 关键词: domestication; stalagmite

摘要

Scholars are increasingly favoring models for the origins of agriculture that involve a protracted process of increasing interdependence within a series of mutualistic relationships between humans and plants, as opposed to a rapid single event or innovation. Nonetheless, these scholars continue to debate over when people first started foraging for grass seeds, when they began to readily utilize sickles, how prominent the early selection pressures were, and when the first traits of domestication fully introgressed into the cultivated grass population. Here, we present complementary archaeobotanical and archaeological (stone tool) evidence for cereal foragers from Toda-1 Cave in the Surkhan Darya, dating to 9200 cal BP. We conclude that early Holocene foragers were processing grains along with nuts and fruits as far north as the rich river valleys of southern Uzbekistan. These data expand the known range that preagricultural cereal foragers covered in the early Holocene, adding to our understanding of the cultural processes that led to farming. Additionally, we present the earliest evidence for people interacting with the progenitors for pistachios and apples (or a close apple relative). The complex foraging behaviors that led to cultivation were being undertaken by people during the early Holocene across a wider area of Eurasia than previously thought.