Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Linguistic evidence supports a long antiquity of cultivation of barley and buckwheat over that of millet and rice in Eastern Bhutan

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Little is known about the prehistoric domestication and cultivation of crops in the Eastern Himalayas (eastern Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh), due to a lack of archaeological and archaeobotanical research in the area. This paper reconstructs the lexical terminology for grains in the East Bodish language sub-family in Eastern Bhutan. Historical linguistic methods suggest that the immediate ancestors of the modern East Bodish speakers cultivated buckwheat (Fagopyrum) and barley (Hordeum) but not millets or rice. Buckwheat was traditionally thought to have been domesticated in Southwest China; however, this research reveals that cultivation (and potentially subsequent domestication) may have taken place among East Bodish language speakers or their ancestors. These findings also pose a challenge for studies which seek to reconstruct millets to ancestral Tibeto-Burman speaking populations.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Barton L, Newsome SD, Chen F-H, Wang H, Guilderson TP, Bettinger RL (2009) Agricultural origins and the isotopic identity of domestication in Northern China. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106:5,523-5,528

    Google Scholar 

  • Blench R, Post MW (2013) Rethinking Sino-Tibetan phylogeny from the perspective of Northeast Indian languages. In: Owen-Smith T, Hill NW (eds) Trans-Himalayan linguistics: historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area. De Gruyter, Berlin, pp 71–104

    Google Scholar 

  • Blust R (1995) The prehistory of the Austronesian-speaking peoples: a view from language. J World Prehist 9:453–510

    Google Scholar 

  • Bosch A (2016) Language contact in Upper Mangdep: a comparative grammar of verbal constructions. Honours thesis, University of Sydney, Sydney

  • Bradley D (1997a) What did they eat? Grain crops in the Burmic groups. Mon-Khmer Stud 27:161–170

    Google Scholar 

  • Bradley D (1997b) Tibeto-Burman languages and classification. In: Bradley D (ed) Papers in Southeast Asian linguistics 14: Tibeto-Burman languages of the Himalayas. Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Canberra, pp 1–72

    Google Scholar 

  • Bradley D (2011) Proto Tibeto Burman grain crops. Rice 4:134–141

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown CH (1999) Lexical acculturation in native American languages. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Chamberlain B (2004) The Khengkha Orthography: developing a language in the Tibetan script environment. MA Thesis, University of Texas, Arlington

  • Chen FH, Dong GH, Zhang DJ et al (2015) Agriculture facilitated permanent human occupation of the Tibetan Plateau after 3,600 bp. Science 349:248–250

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Alpoim Guedes J (2015) Rethinking the spread of agriculture to the Tibetan Plateau. Holocene 25:1498-1510

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Alpoim Guedes J, Lu H, Li Y, Spengler RN, Wu X, Aldenderfer MS (2013) Moving agriculture onto the Tibetan Plateau: the archaeobotanical evidence. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 6:255–269. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-013-0153-4

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D’Alpoim Guedes JA, Lu H, Hein AM, Schmidt AH (2015) Early evidence for the use of wheat and barley as staple crops on the margins of the Tibetan Plateau. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112:5,625-5,630. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1423708112

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D’Alpoim Guedes J, Manning SW, Bocinsky RK (2016) A 5.500-year model of changing crop niches on the Tibetan Plateau. Curr Anthropol 57:517–522

    Google Scholar 

  • Donohue M, Denham T (2011) Languages and genes attest different histories in Island Southeast Asia. Ocean Linguist 50:536–542

    Google Scholar 

  • Fu D (2001) Xizang Changguogou Yizhi Xinshiqi Shidai Nongzuowu Yiqun de Faxian, Jianding yu Yanjiu (The discovery, identification and research on archaeobotanical remains from the Neolithic site of Changguogou, Tibet). Kaogu 2001(3):66–74

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuller DQ (2005) Ceramics, seeds and culinary change in prehistoric India. Antiquity 79:761–777

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuller DQ, Qin L, Zheng Y, Zhao Z, Chen X, Hosoya LA, Sun G-P (2009) The domestication process and domestication rate in rice: spikelet bases from the Lower Yangtze. Science 323:1,607-1,610

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman H (1975) Tibet: a handbook. Indiana University Oriental Series 5. Oriental Series. Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, Bloomington

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunt HV, Vander Linden M, Liu X, Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute G, College S, Jones MK (2008) Millets across Eurasia: chronology and context of early records of the genera Panicum and Setaria from archaeological sites in the Old World. Veget Hist Archaeobot 17(Suppl 1):S5–S18

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunt HV, Shang X, Jones MK (2018) Buckwheat: a crop from outside the major Chinese domestication centres? A review of the archaeobotanical, palynological and genetic evidence. Veget Hist Archaeobot 27:493–506

    Google Scholar 

  • Hyslop G, Tshering K (2010) Preliminary notes on Dakpa (Tawng Monpa). In: Morey S, Post MW (eds) North East Indian Linguistics 2, Cambridge University Press, New Delhi, pp 3–21

  • Hyslop G (2013) On the internal phylogeny of East Bodish languages. In: Hyslop G, Morey S, Post M (eds) North East Indian linguistics 5. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 91–109

    Google Scholar 

  • Hyslop G (2014) A preliminary reconstruction of East Bodish. In: Hill N, Owen-Smith T (eds) Trans-Himalayan linguistics. de Gruyter, Berlin, pp 155–179

    Google Scholar 

  • Hyslop G (2015) Emergent insights into Proto-East-Bodish agricultural economy. In: Post MW, Morey S, DeLancey SC (eds) Language and culture in Northeast India and beyond: in honor of Robbins Burling. Asia-Pacific Linguistics, Canberra, pp 276–288

    Google Scholar 

  • Hyslop G (2017) A grammar of Kurtöp. Brill, Leiden

    Google Scholar 

  • Konishi T, Ohnishi O (2007) Close genetic relationship between cultivated and natural populations of common buckwheat in the Sanjiang area is not due to recent gene flow between them—an analysis using microsatellite markers. Genes Genet Syst 82:53–64

    Google Scholar 

  • Konishi T, Yasuo Y, Ohnishi O (2005) Original birthplace of cultivated common buckwheat inferred from genetic relationships among cultivated populations and natural populations of wild common buckwheat revealed by AFLP analysis. Genes Genet Syst 80:113–119

    Google Scholar 

  • Lu H, Zhang J, Liu K-b et al (2009) Earliest domestication of common millet (Panicum miliaceum) in East Asia extended to 10,000 years ago. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106:7,367-7,372

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu XY, Hunt HV, Jones MK (2009) River valleys and foothills: changing archaeological perceptions of North China’s earliest farms. Antiquity 83:82–95

    Google Scholar 

  • Mallory J (1991) In search of the Indo-Europeans: language, archaeology and myth. Thames and Hudson, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer MC, Hofmann C-C, Gemmell AMD, Haslinger E, Häusler H, Wangda D (2009) Holocene glacier fluctuations and migration of Neolithic yak pastoralists into the high valleys of Northwest Bhutan. Quat Sci Rev 28:1,217-1,237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2008.12.025

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nishida F (2009) A preliminary report on Mandebi-Kha (in Japanese). J Humanit Chiba Univ 38:63–73

    Google Scholar 

  • Ohnishi O (1998a) Search for the wild ancestor of Buckwheat I. Description of new Fagopyrum (Polygonaceae) species and their distribution in China and the Himalayan hills. Fagopyrum 15:18–28

    Google Scholar 

  • Ohnishi O (1998b) Search for the wild ancestor of buckwheat III. The wild ancestor of cultivated common buckwheat, and of tatary buckwheat. Econ Bot 52:123–133

    Google Scholar 

  • Ohnishi O (2009) On the origin of common buckwheat based on allozyme analyses of cultivated and wild populations of common buckwheat. Fagopyrum 26:3–9

    Google Scholar 

  • Penjore D (2017) Digging the past: the state of archaeological study of Bhutan. J Bhutan Stud 36:40–57

    Google Scholar 

  • Sagart L (2003) The vocabulary of cereal cultivation and the phylogeny of East Asian languages. Bull Indo-Pac Prehist Assoc 23:127–136

    Google Scholar 

  • Sagart L, Jacques G, Lai Y, Ryder RJ, Thouzeau V, Greenhill SJ, List J-M (2019) Dated language phylogenies shed light on the ancestry of Sino-Tibetan. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 116:10,317-10,322. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817972116

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shafer R (1954) The linguistic position of Dwags. Oriens 7:348–356

    Google Scholar 

  • Tsuji K, Yasui Y, Ohnishi O (1999) Search for Fagopyrum species in eastern Tibet. Fagopyrum 16:1–6

    Google Scholar 

  • van Driem G (1998) Dzongkha. Brill, Leiden

    Google Scholar 

  • van Driem G (2007a) Dakpa and Dzala form a related subgroup within East Bodish, and some related thoughts. In: Bielmeier R, Haller F (eds) Linguistics of the Himalayas and beyond. de Gruyter, Berlin, pp 71–84

    Google Scholar 

  • van Driem G (2007b) The diversity of the Tibeto-Burman language family and the linguistic ancestry of Chinese. Bull Chin Linguist 1:211–270

    Google Scholar 

  • van Driem G (2015) Synoptic grammar of the Bumthang language. Himal Linguist Arch 6:1–77

    Google Scholar 

  • von Klaproth HJ (1823) Asia polyglotta. Schubart, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Witzel M (2005) Central Asian roots and acculturation in South Asia: liguistic and archaeological evidence from Western Central Asia, the Hindukush and Northwestern South Asia for Early Indo-Aryan language and religion. In: Osada T (ed) Linguistics, archaeology and the human past. Indus Project, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, pp 87–211

    Google Scholar 

  • Xue Y (2010) 云南剑川海门口遗址植物遗存初步研究Yunnan Jianchuan Haimenkou Yizhi Zhiwu Yicun Chubu Yanjiu (A Preliminary Investigation on the Archaeobotanical Material from the Site of Haimenkou in Jianchuan County, Yunnan). Department of Archaeology and Museology. Beijing, MA Thesis, Department of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University. Masters

  • Zhang M, Yan S, Pans W, Jin L (2019) Phylogenetic evidence for Sino-Tibetan origin in northern China in the late Neolithic. Nature 569:112–115

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant (DP140103937), awarded to the first author and Toni Huber, and the Tom Austen Brown Bequest at the University of Sydney. We are grateful to the Dzongkha Development Commission, in Bhutan, for granting permission for the fieldwork as well as arranging the logistics for the research on the ground. Discussions with Karma Tshering, Tshering Dorji, and the program directions of both the National Seed Centre and the Agriculture Research and Development Centre—Wengkhar in Bhutan have been especially helpful. Collaboration between the authors was made possible through a Sydney Social Science and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (SSSHARC) Visiting Fellowship.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Sydney, A20 - John Woolley Building, Camperdown, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Gwendolyn Hyslop

  2. Department of Anthropology, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, 8615 Kennel Way, San Diego (La Jolla), CA, 92037-0212, USA

    Jade d’Alpoim-Guedes

Authors
  1. Gwendolyn Hyslop
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jade d’Alpoim-Guedes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gwendolyn Hyslop.

Additional information

Communicated by A. Fairbairn.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hyslop, G., d’Alpoim-Guedes, J. Linguistic evidence supports a long antiquity of cultivation of barley and buckwheat over that of millet and rice in Eastern Bhutan. Veget Hist Archaeobot 30, 571–579 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-020-00809-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-020-00809-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation