Ex Oriente seges: the arrival and establishment of broomcorn millet in Europe

Cultivation of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) was a widespread practice in later European prehistory. When and how this ‘crop from the East’ was introduced to the continent and spread across it has not been determined. So far, based on the relative chronology of millet finds and a small set of radiocarbon-dated caryopses, it has been suggested that millet did not arrive in Europe during the Neolithic and that this happened in the Mid-Late Bronze Age. It has not been clear why and how millet was integrated into the pre-existing crop spectrum and what effect this had on the crop husbandry routine. The economic and socio-cultural contexts of the adoption of millet have not been closely examined. The 'Millet Dating Programme' recently completed at Kiel University produced 100+ radiocarbon dates on charred grains of broomcorn millet recovered from Neolithic and Bronze Age layers of sites located in different parts of Europe. Collectively, the absolute dates suggest that millet reached most of SE, central and NW Europe in the period 15-13th century BC. Using these high-precision data, we can now build a link between the start of millet cultivation and the coeval changes in subsistence economy potentially resulting from the adoption of the new crop. We present the results of this research project and discuss possible mechanisms by which millet was distributed, as well as the potential agro-ecological causes-andeffects of the establishment of millet cultivation in Europe.