Archaeology

May 24, 2018May 24, 2018

Migrating farmers

So apparently agriculture came into a new area with migrating farmers, rather than as a meme, in Southeast Asia as well as in Europe and South Asia. Or so ancient human DNA from Vietnam shows.

This three-pronged mixture of indigenous hunter-gatherers, early farmers, and a later wave of migrants parallels the prehistory of Europe, also illuminated by ancient DNA in recent years. There, migrating farmers brought agriculture from the Near East to Europe, where they mixed with local hunter-gatherers about 7000 years ago. Then later waves of Bronze Age migrants—in Europe’s case, herders from the Central Asian steppe—moved in and established the population structure scientists see today. (Researchers, including Reich, have also documented a similar pattern in South Asia.)

Always thought that was most likely. People will move before they’ll tell neighbours their secrets.

April 23, 2018April 28, 2018

Brainfood: Seed libraries, Nepali veggie seeds, Agricultural ES, Zn rice, Sub rice core, SoD, D2N, Root crops knowledge, Horse diversity

Civic seeds: new institutions for seed systems and communities—a 2016 survey of California seed libraries. 6456 seed packets borrowed annually, by 4776 people, from >100 seed libraries, with a 6% return rate.
Vegetables production and marketing: practice and perception of vegetable seed producers and fresh growers in Nepal. Producers like hybrids, consumers prefer open pollinated varieties. Oh, and drying is a problem. No word on whether seed libraries might help.
Exploiting ecosystem services in agriculture for increased food security. Services don’t include crop diversity, apparently.
Molecular Diversity Analysis for Zinc Deficiency Tolerance under Aerobic Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Ecosystem. Two major groups.
Developing Mini Core of Rice Germplasm for Submergence Tolerance. Really mini. Maybe too mini?
CIMMYT’s Seeds of Discovery Initiative: Harnessing Biodiversity for Food Security and Sustainable Development. A “visionary investment.”
Temporal change of Distance to Nature index for anthropogenic influence monitoring in a protected area and its buffer zone. I want a Distance to Genebank index.
Indigenous knowledge and household food security: the role of root and tuber crops among indigenous peoples in the Northern Philippines. The youth are losing it.
Decline of genetic diversity in ancient domestic stallions in Europe. It was artificial selection during the Iron Age.

April 9, 2018April 9, 2018

Brainfood: Vine breeding, Moroccan veggie erosion, Potato charisma, Pigeonpea diversity, Dietary diversity, Cannabis breeding, Cattle domestication, Late blight gene

Vitis vinifera L. fruit diversity to breed varieties anticipating climate changes. Nice, but isn’t this leaving it rather late?
The Deterioration of Morocco’s Vegetable Crop Genetic Diversity: An Analysis of the Souss-Massa Region. 80-90% loss in 30 years.
Interspecies Respect and Potato Conservation in the Peruvian Cradle of Domestication. Some varieties have more charisma than others.
Quantitative Analysis, Distribution and Traditional Management of Pigeon Pea [Cajanus Cajan (L.) Millsp.] Landraces’ Diversity in Southern Benin. Larger farms have slightly more varieties, otherwise difficult to find socioeconomic correlates of diversity; main criterion for choosing varieties is market value.
Higher agrobiodiversity is associated with improved dietary diversity, but not child anthropometric status, of Mayan Achí people of Guatemala. Diversifying diets won’t help without better toilets.
Dwarf germplasm: the key to giant Cannabis hempseed and cannabinoid crops. The mainstreaming of weed continues. The Man unavailable for comment.
Early North African Cattle Domestication and Its Ecological Setting: A Reassessment. No early North African cattle domestication after all?
Identification and rapid mapping of a gene conferring broad-spectrum late blight resistance in the diploid potato species Solanum verrucosum through DNA capture technologies. From Mexico with love.

March 10, 2018March 9, 2018

Nibbles: Gros Michel, Poultry photos, Pigeonpea prebreeding, Murnong, Wheat breeding, Hass, Indian forest foods, Popcorn domestication, Mustard history, Historical botanists, Barges & Bread, Samoan distilling, Kenyan brewing

The quest for Big Mike. No, not Stormy Daniels’ latest. It’s a banana.
Ok, I’m going to resist the temptation of making the obvious follow-up joke in connection with this gallery of beautiful chickens.
Who needs chickens when you have pigeons. Ah, no, these are pigeonpeas.
Australia’s answer to the potato. Unclear what the question was.
Australia’s answer to frost-sensitive wheat: look in genebanks for resistant stuff.
The mother of all avocados. Kind of a Hass-been, though.
Avocado shmavocado, says India.
Are you not entertained? Have some popcorn!
And mustard for that hotdog. You know, like Mesolithic people did.
History of plant collecting double feature: Bradby Blake & Frank N. Meyer.
Listen to Jeremy on how grain made its way up the Thames.
A lot of grain also makes its way to Ft Collins. See what I did there?
Taro whiskey: I’ll drink to that.
Kenyan coffee to finish things off? Maybe not for long.

February 14, 2018February 14, 2018

Nibbles: Ruby chocolate, Wild Cicer, Lost rices, Breeding beans, Pawpaw, Pink pineapple, Indigenous livestock, Aquaculture, Coffee Atlas, Egyptian beer, Tequila shortage, Crop diversity

Chocolate.
Hummous.
Rice.
More rice.
Beans.
Pawpaw.
Pineapple.
Guinea fowl.
Seaweed.
Coffee.
Beer.
Tequila.
All of the above. Well, except for rice maybe.