Madella, MarcoGarcía-Granero Fos, Juan JoséOut, Welmoed A.Ryan, PhilippaUsai, Donatella2024-01-162024-01-162014Madella M, García-Granero JJ, Out WA, Ryan P, Usai D. Microbotanical evidence of domestic cereals in Africa 7000 years ago. PLoS ONE. 2014 Oct 22;9(10):e110177. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.01101771932-6203http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58696The study of plant exploitation and early use of cereals in Africa has seen over the years a great input from charred and desiccated macrobotanical remains. This paper presents the results of one of the few examples in Africa of microbotanical analyses. Three grave contexts of phytolith-rich deposits and the dental calculus of 20 individuals were analysed from two Neolithic cemeteries in North and Central Sudan. The radiocarbon-dated phytoliths from the burial samples show the presence of Near East domestic cereals in Northern Sudan at least 7000 years ago. Phytoliths also indicate the exploitation of wild, savannah-adapted millets in Central Sudan between 7500 and 6500 years ago. The calculus samples contained starch grains from wheat/barley, pulses and millets, as well as panicoid phytoliths. This evidence shows that Near East domestic cereals were consumed in Northern Africa at least 500 years earlier than previously thought.application/pdfeng© 2014 Madella 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.CerealsÀfricaNeolíticMidóAnimals domèsticsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0110177info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess