2019

Mapping food globalisation in prehistory

A new paper has recently been published in Quaternary Science Reviews on Feb 15 : From ecological opportunism to multi-cropping: Mapping food globalisation in prehistory. The article highlights the fact that many of today’s principal food crops are distributed worldwide, and while much of this “food globalisation” has resulted from modern trade networks, it has its roots in prehistory.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379118307807?dgcid=author

Between 7000 and 3500 years ago, the Eurasian landmass and northern Africa underwent a transformative process of ‘globalisation’ of major staple cereal crops. Parallels can be drawn to a series of transformative processes of food globalisation in historic times, such as the ‘Columbian Exchange’ and the ‘Islamic Agricultural Revolution’, each of substantial magnitude.

By 3500 years ago, the process of “food globalisation” had brought together previously isolated agricultural systems, to constitute a new kind of agriculture in which the bringing together of local and exotic crops enabled systems of multi-cropping.

A News Release is published in The Source:

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