Food globalization in prehistory

Abstract

Plant sources of starch have been domesticated in several parts of the world. By the second millennium bc in various parts of Eurasia, such starchy crops are encountered, not only around their geographical regions of origin, but also at considerable distances from them. Drawing on evidence from across Eurasia, this paper explores this episode of food globalization in prehistory, comparable in the scale of its impact on global diets to the Columbian Exchange of historic times. Possible reasons for the earlier episode of food globalization are discussed and situated within a broader consideration of cross-continental contact in prehistory.

Keywords:

• Agriculture
• archaeobotany
• Asia
• Neolithic
• Bronze Age
• globalization

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the European Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and Darwin College, Cambridge, for ongoing support of the underlying research, to the Wellcome Trust and the Natural Environment Research Council for earlier grants contributing to the research, and to Professor Nicholas Postgate for his advice and guidance on ancient texts.