Ancient Mesopotamian discovery transforms knowledge of early farming

The Khani Masi plain is in the Garmian Province, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Sirwan Regional Project and Dr. Laugier.

The earliest evidence of broomcorn millet was found in ancient Iraq, challenging our understanding of the earliest agricultural practices. The journal Scientific Reports contains their findings.

The presence of millet in ancient Iraq has challenged the accepted narrative of agricultural development in the region as well as our models for how ancient societies provision themselves.

The first domesticated crop in East Asia was broomcorn millet, which is an amazingly robust, quick-growing and versatile summer crop. The researchers analyzed the plant remains from Khani Masi. The site is in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

The presence of this East Asian crop in ancient Iraq highlights theterconnectedness of the region, which contributes to our knowledge of early food globalization. The discovery of millet and the evidence of summer cultivation practices forces us to rethink the capacity and resilience of the agricultural systems that sustained and provisioned Mesopotamia's early cities, states and empires.

The discovery of broomcorn millet in ancient Mesopotamia was surprising. Researchers thought that millet was grown in Iraq before the construction of the imperial irrigation systems. Southwest Asia has a wet-winter and dry-summer climate, but millet requires summer precipitation to grow, and agricultural production is based almost entirely on crops grown during the winter.

Mesopotamian cities, states and empires are thought to be supported by agricultural production. The researchers' new evidence that crops and food were grown in summer months means that previous studies underestimated the resilience of ancient agricultural food-systems.

The archeological research shows that agricultural innovation was a local initiative, adopted as part of local diversification strategies long before they were used in imperial agricultural regimes.

millet is a common food in Asia and Africa, even though it isn't a preferred food in Southwest Asia or the United States today. Millet is a fast-growing, low-water-requiring and healthy grain that could hold a lot of potential for increasing the resilience of our semi-arid food systems. People in ancient Mesopotamia invested in more diverse and resilient food systems.

The research team hopes to make it more common in the study of ancient Iraq because it could challenge assumptions about the history and practice of agriculture in the region.

Scientific Reports has more information about the evidence for the pastoral origins of multi-cropping in Mesopotamia. There is a DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-03552-w.

Scientific reports are in the journal.

Ancient Mesopotamian discovery transforms knowledge of early farming.

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