Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) is not one of the founder crops domesticated in Southwest Asia in the early Holocene, but was domesticated in northeast China by 6000 bc. In Europe, millet was reported in Early Neolithic contexts formed by 6000 bc, but recent radiocarbon dating of a dozen 'early' grains cast doubt on these claims. Archaeobotanical evidence reveals that millet was common in Europe from the 2nd millennium bc, when major societal and economic transformations took place in the Bronze Age. We conducted an extensive programme of AMS-dating of charred broomcorn millet grains from 75 prehistoric sites in Europe. Our Bayesian model reveals that millet cultivation began in Europe at the earliest during the sixteenth century bc, and spread rapidly during the fifteenth/fourteenth centuries bc. Broomcorn millet succeeds in exceptionally wide range of growing conditions and completes its lifecycle in less than three summer months. Offering an additional harvest and thus surplus food/fodder, it likely was a transformative innovation in European prehistoric agriculture previously based mainly on (winter) cropping of wheat and barley. We provide a new, high-resolution chronological framework for this key agricultural development that likely contributed to far-reaching changes in lifestyle in late 2nd millennium bc Europe.

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceumL.) was first domesticated in China and dispersed westward via Central Asia in the 3rd millennium BC, reaching Europe in the 2nd millennium BC. North of the Black Sea, the North Pontic steppe and forest-steppe areas are key regions for understanding the westward dispersal of millet, as evidenced by the earliest direct radiocarbon dates on European millet grains, which we present here. Examining various lines of evidence relevant to crop cultivation, animal husbandry, contacts and lifestyles, we explore the regional dynamics of the adoption of millet, broadening knowledge about past subsistence strategies related to the ‘millet farmers/consumers’ who inhabited the northern Black Sea region during the Bronze and Iron Ages. Our re-evaluation of crop evidence contributes to ongoing discussions on the mobility of prehistoric communities in the Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe—for instance, on whether millet was linked to full-time mobile pastoralists, who occasionally grew or only consumed it, or whether it was linked to sedentary farmers and cattle herders who regularly cultivated millet, among other crops. From the Bronze Age to the Late Antique, this crop is attested under different socio-cultural conditions that suggest it was adaptable to stockbreeding and the natural environment and consumed since the mid 2nd millennium BC in the northern Black Sea region.

A number of small middle-Neolithic (3300–2800 BC) settlements flourished in the Oldenburger Graben area of northern Germany. The excavations yielded large amounts of crop remains, suggesting that agrarian production was a cornerstone of subsistence economy. Until about 3000 BC, Oldenburger Graben was a fjord, which over time was separated from the Baltic Sea and became a lagoon. The location of the settlement in the wetlands would have been highly favourable, offering a range of terrestrial and aquatic resources. Nonetheless, it may have been challenging to the Neolithic farmers, as perhaps not much dry land was available for crop growing. The success of agrarian production likely depended on the methods employed. This is an initial attempt at reconstructing strategies of agricultural land use during the middle-Neolithic occupation of the Oldenburger Graben lowland. We combine information on the habitat preferences and life history of arable weeds, and the recently obtained carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values on crop grains from one of the sites. The evidence allows us to glean practices that crop cultivation may have entailed, including potential strategies aimed at improving productivity of arable land such as tillage, weeding and manuring. Although preliminary, the observations point at potentially different management of emmer and barley, perhaps due to their variable importance to the Neolithic residents. This is the first time that stable isotope analysis on crops from northern Germany is used to elucidate agricultural practices of the Funnelbeaker communities of the middle-Neolithic.

Triticum timopheevii sensu lato (‘new glume wheat’, NGW) was first recognised as a distinct prehistoric cereal crop through work on archaeobotanical finds from Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in northern Greece. This was later followed by its identification in archaeobotanical assemblages from other parts of Europe. This paper provides an overview of the currently known archaeobotanical finds of Timopheev’s wheat in southeastern and eastern Europe and observes their temporal span and spatial distribution. To date, there are 89 prehistoric sites with these finds, located in different parts of the study region and dated from the Neolithic to the very late Iron Age. Their latest recorded presence in the region is in the last centuries bce. For assemblages from the site as a whole containing at least 30 grain and/or chaff remains of Timopheev’s wheat, we take a brief look at the overall relative proportions of Triticum monococcum (einkorn), T. dicoccum (emmer) and T. timopheevii s.l. (Timopheev’s wheat), the three most common glume wheats in our study region in prehistory. We highlight several sites where the overall proportions of Timopheev’s wheat might be taken to suggest it was a minor component of a mixed crop (maslin), or an unmonitored inclusion in einkorn or emmer fields. At the same sites, however, there are also discrete contexts where this wheat is strongly predominant, pointing to its cultivation as a pure crop. We therefore emphasise the need to evaluate the relative representation of Timopheev’s wheat at the level of individual samples or contexts before making inferences on its cultivation status. We also encourage re-examination of prehistoric and historic cereal assemblages for its remains.

Agriculture is a complex and dynamic socio-ecological system shaped by environmental, economic, and social factors. The crop resource pool is its key component and one that best reflects environmental limitations and socio-economic concerns of the farmers. This pertains in particular to small-scale subsistence production, as was practised by Neolithic farmers. We investigated if and how the environment and cultural complexes shaped the spectrum and diversity of crops cultivated by Neolithic farmers in the central-western Balkans and on the Hungarian Plain. We did so by exploring patterns in crop diversity between biogeographical regions and cultural complexes using multivariate statistical analyses. We also examined the spectrum of wild-gathered plant resources in the same way. We found that the number of species in Neolithic plant assemblages is correlated with sampling intensity (the number and volume of samples), but that this applies to all archaeological cultures. Late Neolithic communities of the central and western Balkans exploited a large pool of plant resources, whose spectrum was somewhat different between archaeological cultures. By comparison, the earliest Neolithic tradition in the region, the Starčevo-Körös-Criş phenomenon, seems to have used a comparatively narrower range of crops and wild plants, as did the Linearbandkeramik culture on the Hungarian Plain.