English Transcript

Last Updated 28/12/2007 16:25:00

CHINA WHEAT

Wheat grains nearly 5,000 years old found at a Chinese archaeological site two years ago, have revealed that western man travelled to China much earlier than previously thought The wheat and barley carbon dated to 2,650BC is not indigenous to China, so how did it get there? It's now thought they originated in the Middle East around 10,000 years ago, with new research saying the grains came from the west

Sen Lam

Joint author on wheat study Professor Dodson, of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO)

DODSON: Well domesticated wheat comes from a wild species and all of the originating species are found in the Levant region of Eurasia, so in the west, so there are no modern varieties that we could have been derived from in the east, just like rice originated in the Yangtze valley area from wild species to domesticated species So that any distribution of rice westward would have had to have come from the east

LAM: So in modern terms where exactly in the west? What country would that be?

DODSON: Countries like Iran, Iraq, Jordan …

LAM: So it's really west of China, not west as in Europe?

DODSON: No it's sometimes called the Middle East which is rather confusing too isn't it?

LAM: So what implications does this discovery have in historical terms?

DODSON: Well the interesting thing about it is, we traditionally think of exchange of ideas and technology took place along the Silk Road, which was actually several routes, and we think the Silk Road probably came into operation about 200BC But these wheat grains and barley grains are of course much older than that, so there was an exchange going on well before the Silk Road was recognised to be in operation

LAM: So you're saying there was actually a trade going on in the grains?

DODSON: Well certainly an exchange of technology, there could have been trade, so I guess we're saying certainly a trade in technology and ideas

LAM: Well tell us a bit more about the Xinjiang mummies, why was that discovery so exciting?

DODSON: Well when they were first discovered of course Xinjiang is mostly extremely dry except for the very high mountains of the old Tian Shan, where there's snowcaps and wetlands and lakes, but most of the Xinjiang area is extremely dry, in fact one of the driest areas on earth So that is very, very good for preservation of these bodies and something like a hundred of these have been found, and they were so well preserved that it was immediately obvious from the clothing they wore, the fact that some of them were blond…

LAM: They were blond?

DODSON: Yeah some of them were blond, and the clothing was of a style that was only recognised from Turkey and areas like that So this seems to be pretty strong evidence that there were people making that journey east 4,000 years ago, and of course some of those people might be the pre-cursors or long-distant relatives of the Uighur people for example

LAM: And of course the fact that they were not royalty you found that very interesting too, why is that so?

DODSON: Well because a lot of the gravesites there, although I've not worked on this, a lot of the gravesites if you read about it seem to be family groups, ordinary people that when they passed on were buried and they've been preserved

LAM: So that would tell you more about how ordinary people lived in those days?

DODSON: It does tell you that but the intriguing thing is that there might be a link between those people bringing in Middle East, if I can use that term, agricultural practices, there may be a good strong link there between these old wheat grains and barley grains that we're finding