Posted on 12/07/2007 1:50:54 PM PST by blam
Ancient wheat suggests early China, Middle East trade
The Xinjian mummies, discovered in 1987, may be linked to new carbon dating evidence of early East-West trade.
Wheat grains nearly 5,000 years old found at a Chinese archaeological site two years ago, have revealed that western man travelled to China much earlier than previously thought.
The research, published by Professor John Dodson and Professor Xiaoqiang Li, shows there are no modern wild varieties of the wheat and barley, which were found in the region in a domesticated form, and carbon dated to 2,650BC.
It is now thought they originated in the Middle East, which showed exchanges between China hundreds of years before the Silk Road, previously thought to be the earliest contact, around 200BC.
Professor Dodson, from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, has told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program,
"Certainly an exchange of technology," he said.
"There could have been trade, so I guess we're saying certainly a trade in technology and ideas."
Mummy links
Professor Dodson says a major archaeological find in the region in 1987, the Xinjiang mummies, may be evidence of those who brought the wheat from the Middle East.
Archaeologists discovered around 100 perfectly preserved corpses in a dry, hilly region in China's far northwest, which dated at 4,000 years old, and showed Caucasian features.
Professor Dodson says the fact that the mummies were of ordinary families, not royalty, also gives insights into past relationships between China and the west.
"The clothing they wore was of a style that was only recognised from Turkey and areas like that, so this seems to be pretty strong evidence that there were people making that journey east 4,000 years ago," he said.
"The intriguing thing is that there might be a link between those people bringing in Middle East agricultural practices - there may be a good strong link there between these wheat grains and these barley grains that we're finding."
No suprise to us:
The Curse of the Red-Headed Mummy
Archaeological and linguistic evidence places the Indo-European homeland in the North Pontic region. Members of one Indo-European group (the Yamnaya culture) that migrated to the western Altai Mountains, where they are identifiable as the Afanasievo culture, may have later moved into the Tarim Basin of what is now western China. (Map by Lynda D'Amico)
Mitt believes there was wheat on the American continent.
9 And we began to till the ground, yea, even with all manner of aseeds, with seeds of corn, and of wheat, and of barley, and with neas, and with sheum, and with seeds of all manner of fruits; and we did begin to multiply and prosper in the land.
http://scriptures.lds.org/mosiah/9/9#9
You mean to tell me that’s no big deal?
Eden in the East! ping for later read...
It means he’s definitely not qualified to be an archaeologist. It also means that you are a thread-hijacker.
Yeah, sorry.
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Thanks Blam. Obviously this study was done by someone outstanding in their field, no doubt an older, more experienced researcher, probably grain at the temples. |
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;’) It seemed so perfect for FreeReapublic.
That was pretty corny.
You spelt it wrong.
I ploughmise to avoid that in the future.
wonda if they had global warming then
in order to grow their crops in that region?
Naw, this research was done my the military - somebody above the rank of Kernel.
The harvest was brought in by hand - it was just a scythe of the tines.
EXCELLENT!
A ping for those who are rolling in dough and glutens for pun-ishment...
Ah, but corn is everywhere.
(Nice tagline, not too teff to figure out)
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