Domesticated Grains Mark Early Trade Route

News April 3, 2014

(Michael Franchetti)
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(Michael Franchetti)

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI—Crops from western and eastern Asia have been discovered in ancient campsites in central Asia, suggesting that nomadic shepherds may have acted as a link between the two regions some 5,000 years ago. “Ancient wheat and broomcorn millet, recovered in nomadic campsites in Kazakhstan, show that prehistoric herders in Central Eurasia had incorporated both regional crops into their economy and rituals nearly 5,000 years ago,” Michael Franchetti of Washington University told Discovery News. The domesticated grains also indicate that these seasonally mobile herders were farming 2,000 years earlier than previously thought.

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