PAST & FUTURE MILLET FOODWAYS

Introduction

Crop diversification critically mitigates agricultural risk for humanity. Identifying the environmental and cultural factors influencing the adoption and abandonment of staple foods through time is essential to an informed discussion about present-day food security and adaptation to a changing global climate.

Background

Past studies on ancient agriculture have identified the routes and timing of primary crop dispersals. However, we possess a remarkably narrow understanding of how and why new foods were integrated and later abandoned by societies, and why certain crops remained restricted to distinct geographical regions.

Project Overview

The MILWAYS project is perfectly poised to fill this alarming gap in knowledge through a multi-faceted investigation of a specific crop - broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum). Due to its unique biochemical properties, broomcorn millet is traceable across space and time.

Methodology

Making use of multi-disciplinary cutting-edge research methodologies, MILWAYS will:

1. Bridge a large geographic territory.
2. Track the earliest millet dispersals across eastern-central Europe from the mid-2nd millennium BCE onwards to the past millet cultivation limit.
3. Utilize the high carbon isotope values of millet, resulting from its C4-photosynthetic pathway, in conjunction with the distinct miliacin biomarker to identify its consumption.

This will be done with respect to shifting climates, human mobility, demographic categories of sex and age, and changes in plant use across historical times.

Objectives

Along with transforming the approaches on how we study past agriculture, MILWAYS will:

a) Identify the interplay of cultural versus climatic factors in past staple food adoption and abandonment.
b) Develop novel methodologies for the study of past diets and climates that are highly transferable to the study of other crops.
c) Better understand millet environmental adaptation in northern latitudes.
d) Create models of past and future crop exploitation strategies.