“So Mesolithic people were not simply and quickly replaced by Neolithic peoples. Instead there was a long period — thousands of years — of interaction between the two.”

Eight millennia ago, Europe might have looked very differently than it does today – in fact, some geologists argue that Britain was still connected to the mainland through a land called Doggerland.

But even if a land bridge did exist, the fact that such cultural (and maybe even economic) interaction existed is quite surprising.

Allaby and evolutionary geneticist at the University of Warwick, continued:

“We were surprised to find wheat.

This is a smoking gun of cultural interaction.

It will upset archaeologists.

The conventional view of Britain at the time was that it was cut off.

We can only speculate how they got wheat — it could have been trade, a gift or stolen.”

Researchers discovered fragments of of wheat DNA recovered from an ancient peat bog, alongside numerous other DNA fragments from wolves, dogs, deer, poplar, beech, and oak woods.

However, no wheat pollen was found from the site, which suggests the plant was not grown in a nearby location. 

Wheat species are endemic to the Middle East so it’s extremely unlikely that they were grown locally.

To make things even more interesting, archaeologists found DNA of (likely domesticated) pigs – a staple of Germany in those times.

It would appear that a relatively advanced population of farmers arrived in Britain encountering the local hunter-gatherers in more advanced farming techniques.

They either bartered, gifted or were robbed of their possessions and then left; if they had stayed, they would have likely began cultivating wheat or growing pigs.

Simone Riehl, an archaeologist at Tuebingen Univ. in Germany who also wasn’t involved in the study, said extracting DNA from sediment could revolutionize our understanding of ancient cultures, especially in areas where such evidence is scarce or where it was covered by water.

“The interpretation of ancient DNA signatures from such sediments however will probably remain debatable for a long time,” said Riehl.

The recovered DNA (of the wheat-known as einkorn) was collected from sediment that was once a peat bog next to a river.

Since no grains were found in the sediment, the DNA probably came from wheat flour

“Probably the people would use such a product to make a dough. It is a simple matter to add water to flour, resulting in a flat bread which they could eat,” he said.

Journal Reference: Oliver Smith, Garry Momber, Richard Bates, Paul Garwood, Simon Fitch, Mark Pallen, Vincent Gaffney, Robin G. Allaby. 

Sedimentary DNA from a submerged site reveals wheat in the British Isles 8000 years ago. DOI: 10.1126/science.1261278

http://www.zmescience.com/science/archaeology/wheat-einkorn-britain-02032015/

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