Wheat reached England before farming
Hunter-gatherers may have traded for agricultural products 8,000 years ago
GRAIN TRAIN Agriculture spread from what’s now Turkey along southern (purple arrow) and northern routes (yellow arrows) into Europe. DNA recovered from soil at the underwater site of Bouldnor Cliff indicates that wheat reached England at least 2,000 years before it was first grown there.
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Hunter-gatherers living on England’s southern coast imported wheat 2,000 years before agriculture sprouted in the British Isles, a new study suggests.
This trading among hunter-gatherers and farmers laid the groundwork for agriculture’s spread across Northwest Europe, propose archaeogeneticist Oliver Smith of the University of Warwick in England and his colleagues. Until now, researchers have contended that migrating farmers rapidly sent European hunter-gatherers packing or gradually converted them to an agricultural lifestyle.
