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The Origins of the Apple in Central Asia

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Journal of World Prehistory Aims and scope

Abstract

The study of agricultural origins has been revolutionized by genomic science. Whole genome sequencing of plant domesticates opens a door to multiple new approaches by which the timing, nature, and geography of human selective pressures on the evolution of domesticated species might be detected. These new scientific pathways greatly enhance understandings of domestication as an evolutionary process, but they also renew long-standing questions for archaeologists about whether and how to perceive human agency in the ancient past of human–plant interspecies relations. Due to its importance as a global commercial crop, the apple (Malus x domestica Borkh.) was the tenth plant genome to be successfully sequenced in 2010. The genomic record of the apple reveals a deep history of human–plant co-evolution by unconscious selection, domestication through hybridization, and a phylogeographic origin in Central Asia. The first two of these insights document a domesticate that has evolved from protracted and unconscious processes, but the third—the identification of the progenitor Malus sieversii (Ledeb.) M. Roem. in Central Asia, and the necessary corollary that its hybridization arose along the ‘Silk Road’—invites further discussion about the roles of human agency and intentionality in the initial stages of plant domestication. This paper presents a review of apple domestication studies in archaeology and genetics and considers the problematic of Central Asia and the Silk Road in the current paradigm shift of agricultural origins research.

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Fig. 1

Source: Hansen/UMD/Google/USGS/NASA (Color figure online)

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Fig. 3

Source: http://ecotope.org/products/datasets/used_planet/ (Color figure online)

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Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Fiona Kidd, John M. Marston, and Robert Spengler for their comments on early drafts of the manuscript. Jules Janick provided stimulating conversation and insightful feedback that was instrumental in the development of the ideas presented here. Perry Kirkham contributed the orchard photo, and he and the Kirkham family of Wea Creek Orchards, IN provided numerous insights that contributed to the formation of the ideas in this paper. A special thank you also to Keith Woeste and Kevin McNamara for directing me to resources about fruit tree horticulture in Central Asia. Feedback on presentations of the work at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA and the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University greatly improved revisions, and I am especially thankful to Monica Smith and Marianne Kamp for organizing those sessions and providing me with comments that inspired significant improvement to the work. Many thanks to the editorial board and staff of the Journal of World Prehistory for their guidance, patience, and support in the development of the manuscript, and to the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback. All errors or omissions are mine alone.

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    Elizabeth Baker Brite

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Brite, E.B. The Origins of the Apple in Central Asia. J World Prehist 34, 159–193 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-021-09154-8

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