Archaeology

May 19, 2011

The spread of agriculture in print

Three ahead-of-print papers on the spread of agriculture in Current Anthropology:

The Neolithic Southwest Asian Founder Crops — Ehud Weiss, Daniel Zohary
Westward Ho! — Peter Rowley-Conwy (that would be about Europe)
Holocene Population History in the Pacific Region as a Model for Worldwide Food Producer Dispersals — Peter Bellwood

Things are hectic at the moment, so the penetrating summary and free-wheeling synthesis you’ve come to expect will have to wait. Unless of course you want to do them. The papers are free to access, after all…

May 16, 2011May 13, 2011

Brainfood: Millet biscuits, Wheat micronutrients, Diversification and C footprint, Agroforestry, Epazote, Grape history, Belgian farmers, Millet phenology, Species migration, Barley domestication, Sheep genetics

Quality characteristics of biscuits prepared from finger millet seed coat based composite flour. They’re nutritious. Crocodile Dundee on the tastiness of the iguana may, however, apply.
Minerals and trace elements in a collection of wheat landraces from the Canary Islands. There are differences, but environment and agronomic practices could affect them.
Lowering carbon footprint of durum wheat by diversifying cropping systems. Yes, by 7-34%, depending on how the diversification was done.
Effect of shading by baobab (Adansonia digitata) and néré (Parkia biglobosa) on yields of millet (Pennisetum glaucum) and taro (Colocasia esculenta) in parkland systems in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Taro is a shade lover; grow it under néré, and vice versa.
Ethnobotanical, morphological, phytochemical and molecular evidence for the incipient domestication of Epazote (Chenopodium ambrosioides L.: Chenopodiaceae) in a semi-arid region of Mexico. Good to know; I love epazote.
Grape varieties (Vitis vinifera L.) from the Balearic Islands: genetic characterization and relationship with Iberian Peninsula and Mediterranean Basin. See the grand sweep of European history unfold.
Microsatellite characterization of grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) genetic diversity in Asturias (Northern Spain). No evidence of communication with the previous group.
Plant economy of the first farmers of central Belgium (Linearbandkeramik, 5200–5000 b.c.). They were dope fiends.
Selection for earlier flowering crop associated with climatic variations in the Sahel. Compared to 1976 millet samples, samples collected in 2003 had shorter lifecycle (due to an early flowering allele at the PHYC locus increasing in frequency), and a reduction in plant and spike size. So you don’t need new varieties, the old ones will adapt to climate change. Oh, and BTW, there’s been no genetic erosion.
Do species’ traits predict recent shifts at expanding range edges? No.
The domestication syndrome genes responsible for the major changes in plant form in the Triticeae crops. Failure to disarticulate and 6-rows in barley, in detail. Part of a Special Issue on Barley.
The genetics of colour in fat-tailed sheep: a review. I didn’t know karakul had fat tails.

May 13, 2011May 13, 2011

Yale announces “Open Access” policy

We are happy to celebrate the announcement by Yale University that it is allowing “free access to online images of millions of objects housed in Yale’s museums, archives, and libraries” by reproducing this slide of

Produce of the native agriculture showing bananas, lemons, sweet potatoes, manioc, peppers, sugar cane, squash, lettuce, a spinach type of green, tomatoes, onion, potatoes, maize, and beans. In the center of the picture there is a plant used in black magic (red colored). 1954. Kamu Valley. Kapauku. (Mr. Leopold Pospisil’s collection of slides on the Kapauku Papuans of New Guinea.)

Plenty more in there of agrobiodiversity interest.

May 12, 2011May 12, 2011

Nibbles: Fruit-tree fundraiser, Bangladesh seed crisis, Mead, Early farmers, Fruit genebank

Bioversity promotes a fund-raiser for forgotten fruit trees.
Seed crisis in Bangladesh. It’s complicated. Really complicated.
Belatedly, mirthful report on mead.
“…during the advent of agriculture … early farmers may have at first come together in communal activities, prior to congregating in villages.”
USDA’s fruit genebank at Corvallis in the news.

May 11, 2011

Agriculture and people

So, “agricultural expansion is the principal factor for shaping global linguistic diversity,” and indeed human genetic diversity, both in Europe and Japan. Further evidence for Bellwood’s controversial thesis.