How ancient DNA may help in understanding the origin and spread of agriculture

Abstract

plant domestication driving force behind the transition to agriculture, as originally suggested by Childe (e.g. Sherratt 1997). It is absolutely correct that scholarly thought regarding the transition to agriculture should be centred within archaeology as opposed to any other academic discipline. It is, after all, the remit of archaeology to understand human prehistory and interpretations using the heuristic principles of, for example, evolutionary genetics, must therefore be consistent with archaeological evidence if they are to be meaningful. But it can be argued that the post-processual interpretation of the shift to agriculture as simply a small part of a much broader sociological transition, this view coupled in some cases with an apparent distrust of the applications of molecular genetics in addressing archaeological issues (e.g. Pluciennik 1996), has resulted in the relevance of biological studies being underemphasized. This is unfortunate because two developments in molecular genetics during the last ¢ve years have the potential to make an important impact on our understanding of the transition to agriculture. These developments are the increased re¢nement of molecular phylogenetic techniques, which enable inferences regarding the origins of domesticates to be made by examining the genetic features of living plants and animals, and the gradual elaboration of methodology for gaining meaningful genetic information from ancient DNA preserved in the remains of early domesticates. In this paper, I will illustrate the current achievements and future potential of molecular genetics in studies of agriculture by reviewing work carried out with emmer wheat. First, however, it is important to summarize which