9,000-year-old barley consumption in the foothills of central Asia

Scholars are increasingly favoring models for the origins of agriculture that involve a protracted process of increasing interdependence within a series of mutualistic relationships between humans and plants, as opposed to a rapid single event or innovation. Nonetheless, these scholars continue to debate over when people first started foraging for grass seeds, when they began to readily utilize sickles, how prominent the early selection pressures were, and when the first traits of domestication fully introgressed into the cultivated grass population. Here, we present complementary archaeobotanical and archaeological (stone tool) evidence for cereal foragers from Toda-1 Cave in the Surkhan Darya, dating to 9200 cal BP. We conclude that early Holocene foragers were processing grains along with nuts and fruits as far north as the rich river valleys of southern Uzbekistan. These data expand the known range that preagricultural cereal foragers covered in the early Holocene, adding to our understanding of the cultural processes that led to farming. Additionally, we present the earliest evidence for people interacting with the progenitors for pistachios and apples (or a close apple relative). The complex foraging behaviors that led to cultivation were being undertaken by people during the early Holocene across a wider area of Eurasia than previously thought.

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Publication Details

Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published
2025-08-25
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2424093122
Citations
4
Primary Topic
Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
17.32
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article

9,000-year-old barley consumption in the foothills of central Asia

Farhod Maksudov, Nasibillo Kambarov, Junchi Liu, Steven T. Goldstein et al.
4 citations
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
17.32
article

9,000-year-old barley consumption in the foothills of central Asia

Farhod Maksudov, Nasibillo Kambarov, Junchi Liu, Steven T. Goldstein, Robert Nicholas Spengler, Xinying Zhou, Thomas A. Stidham, Hui Shên, Guanhan Chen, Keliang Zhao, Guilin Zhang, Yemao Hou, Hai Xu, Dorian Q. Fuller, Qingjiang Yang, Xiaoqiang Li, Jianxin Wang, Jianhang Ma, Jian Ma, Wang Jian, Hongen Jiang, Bahediyoh Sayfullaev, Khasanov Mutalibjon
article en
4 citations

Abstract

Scholars are increasingly favoring models for the origins of agriculture that involve a protracted process of increasing interdependence within a series of mutualistic relationships between humans and plants, as opposed to a rapid single event or innovation. Nonetheless, these scholars continue to debate over when people first started foraging for grass seeds, when they began to readily utilize sickles, how prominent the early selection pressures were, and when the first traits of domestication fully introgressed into the cultivated grass population. Here, we present complementary archaeobotanical and archaeological (stone tool) evidence for cereal foragers from Toda-1 Cave in the Surkhan Darya, dating to 9200 cal BP. We conclude that early Holocene foragers were processing grains along with nuts and fruits as far north as the rich river valleys of southern Uzbekistan. These data expand the known range that preagricultural cereal foragers covered in the early Holocene, adding to our understanding of the cultural processes that led to farming. Additionally, we present the earliest evidence for people interacting with the progenitors for pistachios and apples (or a close apple relative). The complex foraging behaviors that led to cultivation were being undertaken by people during the early Holocene across a wider area of Eurasia than previously thought.

Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesVol. 122(36)
Austin College (US), Academy of Sciences Republic of Uzbekistan (UZ), Planetary Science Institute (US), Tianjin University (CN), University of Pittsburgh (US), Northwest University (US), Northwest University (CN), Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (CN), Ferghana State University (UZ), Department of Cultural Heritage (LT), Institute of Archeology (UA), Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (DE), University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), University College London (GB), National University of Uzbekistan (UZ)
Openalex Percentile: Top 1%
Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
17.32
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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