Environmental effects on the spread of the Neolithic crop package to South Asia

The emergence of Neolithic economies and their spread through Eurasia was one of the most crucial transitions of the Holocene, with different mechanisms of diffusion—demic, cultural—being proposed. While this phenomenon has been exhaustively studied in Europe, with repeated attempts to model the spe...

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Autores: Gregorio de Souza, Jonas, Ruiz Pérez, Javier, Lancelotti, Carla, Madella, Marco
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Repositorio:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/57722
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57722
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268482
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Neolithic period
Crops
Domestic animals
Asia
Barley
Archaeological dating
Wheat
Cereal crops
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spelling Environmental effects on the spread of the Neolithic crop package to South AsiaGregorio de Souza, JonasRuiz Pérez, JavierLancelotti, CarlaMadella, MarcoNeolithic periodCropsDomestic animalsAsiaBarleyArchaeological datingWheatCereal cropsThe emergence of Neolithic economies and their spread through Eurasia was one of the most crucial transitions of the Holocene, with different mechanisms of diffusion—demic, cultural—being proposed. While this phenomenon has been exhaustively studied in Europe, with repeated attempts to model the speed of Neolithic diffusion based on radiocarbon dates, much less attention has been devoted to the dispersal towards the East, and in particular to South Asia. The Neolithic in the latter region at least partly derived from southwest Asia, given the presence of “founder crops” such as wheat and barley. The process of their eastward diffusion, however, may have been significantly different to the westward dispersal, which was mainly due to demic diffusion, as local domesticates were already available and farming was already practiced in parts of South Asia. Here, we use radiocarbon dates specifically related to the spread of the southwest Asian Neolithic crops to model the speed of dispersal of this agricultural package towards South Asia. To assess potential geographical and environmental effects on the dispersal, we simulate different speeds depending on the biomes being crossed, employing a genetic algorithm to search for the values that most closely approach the radiocarbon dates. We find that the most important barrier to be crossed were the Zagros mountains, where the speed was lowest, possibly due to topography and climate. A large portion of the study area is dominated by deserts and shrublands, where the speed of advance, albeit closer to the range expected for demic diffusion, was lower than observed in Europe, which can also potentially be attributed to environmental constraints in the adaptation of the crops. Finally, a notable acceleration begins in the Indus valley, exceeding the range of demic diffusion in the tropical and subtropical environments east of the Indus. We propose that the latter is due to the rapid diffusion among populations already familiar with plant cultivation.Public Library of Science (PLoS)202320232022info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/57722http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268482reponame:Repositorio Digital de la UPFinstname:Universitat Pompeu FabraInglésPLoS ONE. 2022;17(7):e0268482.https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6472931© 2022 Gregorio de Souza et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/577222026-06-12T07:21:37Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Environmental effects on the spread of the Neolithic crop package to South Asia
title Environmental effects on the spread of the Neolithic crop package to South Asia
spellingShingle Environmental effects on the spread of the Neolithic crop package to South Asia
Gregorio de Souza, Jonas
Neolithic period
Crops
Domestic animals
Asia
Barley
Archaeological dating
Wheat
Cereal crops
title_short Environmental effects on the spread of the Neolithic crop package to South Asia
title_full Environmental effects on the spread of the Neolithic crop package to South Asia
title_fullStr Environmental effects on the spread of the Neolithic crop package to South Asia
title_full_unstemmed Environmental effects on the spread of the Neolithic crop package to South Asia
title_sort Environmental effects on the spread of the Neolithic crop package to South Asia
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Gregorio de Souza, Jonas
Ruiz Pérez, Javier
Lancelotti, Carla
Madella, Marco
author Gregorio de Souza, Jonas
author_facet Gregorio de Souza, Jonas
Ruiz Pérez, Javier
Lancelotti, Carla
Madella, Marco
author_role author
author2 Ruiz Pérez, Javier
Lancelotti, Carla
Madella, Marco
author2_role author
author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Neolithic period
Crops
Domestic animals
Asia
Barley
Archaeological dating
Wheat
Cereal crops
topic Neolithic period
Crops
Domestic animals
Asia
Barley
Archaeological dating
Wheat
Cereal crops
description The emergence of Neolithic economies and their spread through Eurasia was one of the most crucial transitions of the Holocene, with different mechanisms of diffusion—demic, cultural—being proposed. While this phenomenon has been exhaustively studied in Europe, with repeated attempts to model the speed of Neolithic diffusion based on radiocarbon dates, much less attention has been devoted to the dispersal towards the East, and in particular to South Asia. The Neolithic in the latter region at least partly derived from southwest Asia, given the presence of “founder crops” such as wheat and barley. The process of their eastward diffusion, however, may have been significantly different to the westward dispersal, which was mainly due to demic diffusion, as local domesticates were already available and farming was already practiced in parts of South Asia. Here, we use radiocarbon dates specifically related to the spread of the southwest Asian Neolithic crops to model the speed of dispersal of this agricultural package towards South Asia. To assess potential geographical and environmental effects on the dispersal, we simulate different speeds depending on the biomes being crossed, employing a genetic algorithm to search for the values that most closely approach the radiocarbon dates. We find that the most important barrier to be crossed were the Zagros mountains, where the speed was lowest, possibly due to topography and climate. A large portion of the study area is dominated by deserts and shrublands, where the speed of advance, albeit closer to the range expected for demic diffusion, was lower than observed in Europe, which can also potentially be attributed to environmental constraints in the adaptation of the crops. Finally, a notable acceleration begins in the Indus valley, exceeding the range of demic diffusion in the tropical and subtropical environments east of the Indus. We propose that the latter is due to the rapid diffusion among populations already familiar with plant cultivation.
publishDate 2022
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2022
2023
2023
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
format article
status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57722
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268482
url http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57722
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268482
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv PLoS ONE. 2022;17(7):e0268482.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6472931
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Public Library of Science (PLoS)
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
instname:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
instname_str Universitat Pompeu Fabra
reponame_str Repositorio Digital de la UPF
collection Repositorio Digital de la UPF
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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