Unprecedented yet gradual nature of first millennium CE intercontinental crop plant dispersal revealed in ancient Negev desert refuse
- University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Bar-Ilan University, Israel
- Tel Aviv University, Israel
- Israel Antiquities Authority, Israel
- University of Haifa, Israel
Abstract
Global agro-biodiversity has resulted from processes of plant migration and agricultural adoption. Although critically affecting current diversity, crop diffusion from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages is poorly researched, overshadowed by studies on that of prehistoric periods. A new archaeobotanical dataset from three Negev Highland desert sites demonstrates the first millennium CE&'s significance for long-term agricultural change in southwest Asia. This enables evaluation of the 'Islamic Green Revolution' (IGR) thesis compared to 'Roman Agricultural Diffusion' (RAD), and both versus crop diffusion during and since the Neolithic. Among the finds, some of the earliest aubergine (Solanum melongena) seeds in the Levant represent the proposed IGR. Several other identified economic plants, including two unprecedented in Levantine archaeobotany-jujube (Ziziphus jujuba/mauritiana) and white lupine (Lupinus albus)-implicate RAD as the greater force for crop migrations. Altogether the evidence supports a gradualist model for Holocene-wide crop diffusion, within which the first millennium CE contributed more to global agricultural diversity than any earlier period.
Data availability
Only identified plant taxa are reported in the results of this study and all relevant data are included in the manuscript and supplementary materials. Source data may be found in Table 4-Source data 1-3.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Bar-Ilan University
- Daniel Fuks
Israel Council for Higher Education
- Daniel Fuks
Molcho fund
- Daniel Fuks
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
- Guy Bar-Oz
Israel Science Foundation
- Guy Bar-Oz
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
- Daniel Fuks
British Academy
- Daniel Fuks
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2023, Fuks et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Unprecedented yet gradual nature of first millennium CE intercontinental crop plant dispersal revealed in ancient Negev desert refuse
eLife 12:e85118.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.85118
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