Agriculture initiated by indigenous people, not migrants: study

Small scale agricultural farming was first introduced by indigenous communities living in Turkey, and not by migrant farmers as previously thought, according to a study.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool in the UK discovered the presence of carbonised seeds and phytoliths - fossilised particles of plant tissue - of wheat chaff at Boncuklu in Turkey's Anatolian plateau.

They also discovered agricultural weeds commonly found in early farming sites, suggesting the cultivation of crops did take place.

Nitrogen isotopes from sheep and goat bone collagen indicate very small scale experimentation with the herding of these animals, researchers said.

In the research published in the journal PNAS, analysis of stone tools and ancient DNA suggests an indigenous population, rather than migrants from earlier agricultural communities within the Fertile Crescent.

 

"Our evidence shows that the site of Boncuklu was occupied by long present, local Anatolian communities who mostly hunted and gathered a wide range of wetland animals and plants, but adopted farming from areas to the south and east through exchange," said Douglas Baird, a professor at the University of Liverpool.

"Although used; cultivated plants, wheat, lentils and peas were not fully domesticated and contributed only a small amount to the diet of the Boncuklu community," Baird said.

"Unexpectedly, this low level food production persisted for at least five centuries," said Andrew Fairbairn, an associate professor at University of Queensland in Australia.

Archaeologists usually consider these kinds of food production systems to be short-lived and transitional.

However, the study suggests a stable and persistent use of crops and herd animals as a minor part of the economy for a long time, said Fairbairn.

The team contrasted Boncuklu with the nearby site of Pinarbasi, excavated by Baird in 2003-4.

Lying 30 km south of Boncuklu in Karaman Province, evidence suggests these communities resisted the adoption of farming and maintained a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, showing the spread of agriculture beyond the Fertile Crescent was neither uniform nor inevitable.