New AMS 14C dates track the arrival and spread of broomcorn millet cultivation and agricultural change in prehistoric Europe

Dragana Filipović (1) , John Meadows (2) , Marta Dal Corso (1) , Wiebke Kirleis (1) , Almuth Alsleben (3) , Örni Akeret (4) , Felix Bittmann (5) , Giovanna Bosi (6) , Beatrice Ciută (7) , Dagmar Dreslerová (8) , Henrike Effenberger , Ferenc Gyulai , Andreas Heiss (9) , Monika Hellmund (10) , Susanne Jahns (11) , Thorsten Jakobitsch , Magda Kapcia , Stefanie Klooss (12) , Marianne Kohler-Schneider , Helmut Kroll , Przemysław Makarowicz (13) , Elena Marinova (14) , Tanja Märkle (14) , Aleksandar Medović (15) , Anna Maria Mercuri , Aldona Mueller-Bieniek (16) , Renato Nisbet , Galina Pashkevich , Renata Perego , Petr Pokorný , Łukasz Pospieszny , Marcin Przybyła , Kelly Reed , Joanna Rennwanz , Hans-Peter Stika , Astrid Stobbe , Tjaša Tolar , Krystyna Wasylikowa , Julian Wiethold (17, 18) , Tanja Zerl (19)

1 Institut fûr Ur- und Frühgeschichte
2 ZBSA - Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA), Schleswig-Holstein State Museums Foundation
3 ZBSA - Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology
4 Integrative Prähistorische und Naturwissenschaftliche Archäologie, Basel
5 NIHK - Niedersächsisches Institut für Historische Küstenforschung
6 Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita, Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio EmiliaUniversità degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia
7 Facultatea de Istorie şi Filologie, Universitatea “1 Decembrie 1918” Alba Iulia
8 Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
9 ÖAI - Austrian Archaeological Institute (ÖAI), Austrian Archaeological Institute (ÖAI), Austrian Academy of Sciences
10 LDA-LSA - Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt
11 Brandenburgisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologisches Landesmuseum
12 Archäologisches Landesamt Schleswig-Holstein
13 UAM - Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu = Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
14 Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Baden-Württemberg
15 Museum of Vojvodina
16 Department of Palaeobotany, W. Szafer Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences
17 ARTeHiS - Archéologie, Terre, Histoire, Sociétés [Dijon]
18 Inrap - Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives
19 Institut fur UR-und Frühgeschichte

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) is not one of the founder crops domesticated in Southwest Asia in the early Holocene, but was domesticated in northeast China by 6000 BC. In Europe, millet was reported in Early Neolithic contexts formed by 6000 BC, but recent radiocarbon dating of a dozen 'early' grains cast doubt on these claims. Archaeobotanical evidence reveals that millet was common in Europe from the 2nd millennium BC, when major societal and economic transformations took place in the Bronze Age. We conducted an extensive programme of AMS-dating of charred broomcorn millet grains from 75 prehistoric sites in Europe. Our Bayesian model reveals that millet cultivation began in Europe at the earliest during the sixteenth century BC, and spread rapidly during the fifteenth/fourteenth centuries BC. Broomcorn millet succeeds in exceptionally wide range of growing conditions and completes its lifecycle in less than three summer months. Offering an additional harvest and thus surplus food/fodder, it likely was a transformative innovation in European prehistoric agriculture previously based mainly on (winter) cropping of wheat and barley. We provide a new, high-resolution chronological framework for this key agricultural development that likely contributed to far-reaching changes in lifestyle in late 2nd millennium BC Europe.

Mots clés: Environmental social sciences; Plant sciences

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Dragana Filipović, John Meadows, Marta Dal Corso, Wiebke Kirleis, Almuth Alsleben, et al.. New AMS 14C dates track the arrival and spread of broomcorn millet cultivation and agricultural change in prehistoric Europe. Scientific Reports, 2020, 10, pp.13698. ⟨10.1038/s41598-020-70495-z⟩. ⟨hal-03105928⟩