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A tale of new crops in the arid Arabian Peninsula oasis from antiquity to the early Islamic period

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Abstract

Agriculture in the arid Arabian Peninsula became established during the early Bronze Age and relied, at least in eastern Arabia, on the cultivation of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) and annual crops, namely barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. vulgare, H. vulgare ssp. distichon) and different wheats—in particular, emmer (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccon), durum/rivet wheat (T. turgidum ssp. durum/turgidum), bread wheat (T. aestivum ssp. aestivum)—and pulses, such as pea (Lathyrus oleraceus) and lentil (Vicia lens). The association of these crops with irrigation systems indicates the presence of resilient oasian agrosystems allowing the production of multiple crops over a reduced surface area thanks to water use optimization. It is also a hub connecting local agrarian producers with merchants and travellers through exchange, particularly dynamic during historical times, which can be highlighted through archaeobotanical data. At the crossroads of the Mediterranean, African and Indian Ocean spheres, the Arabian Peninsula is a relevant observatory of the diffusion processes of new Mediterranean, tropical and subtropical crops. Recent archaeobotanical finds from antique and early medieval Islamic sites show that ancient oases were ecological and economic niches hosting new plants, such as rice (Oryza sativa), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor ssp. bicolor), pepper (Piper nigrum) and cotton (Gossypium arboreum/herbaceum), some of which were probably acclimatized and cultivated locally. Their introduction should have modified the spatial, temporal and labour organizations of pre-existent agricultural systems, implying the transfer and development of new know-how. Therefore, by following an interdisciplinary approach using archaeobotany, archaeology, history and isotope geochemistry, this contribution aims to describe some of these new plants and their chronology and discuss their potential introduction into local agricultural systems.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Daniel Fuks, Frijda Schmidt and Neal Payne (Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, UK) for the organisation of the Workshop Moving plants: Agricultural crop migrations in the 1st millennium ce Middle East and Mediterranean (05/2022) with the support of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research for which this research was prepared. We thank the archaeological missions and the local cultural authorities of countries concerned without whom this research would not be possible. We would like to thank Antoine Zazzo and Olivier Tombret (UMR 7209/CNRS) for the radiocarbon dating, Romain Perronet for the photograph of the chickpea seed and Jill Cucchi for the language-editing. Finally, we would like to thank the reviewers and the guest editor for their useful comments.

Funding

The study was part of the ECO-SEED project (dir. C. Bouchaud), funded by the French Agency for the Development of AlUla (AFALULA), in agreement with the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Vladimir Dabrowski and Charlène Bouchaud are co-first authors and contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Archéozoologie, Archéobotanique: Sociétés, Pratiques, Environnements (UMR 7209), National Museum of Natural History (MNHN)/National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France

    Vladimir Dabrowski, Charlène Bouchaud, Xavier Desormeau, Elora Chambraud, Saskia E. Ryan & Margareta Tengberg

  2. Orient & Méditerranée (UMR 8167), CNRS/Sorbonne Université/Université Paris, 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/EPHE, Paris, France

    Xavier Desormeau

  3. Archéorient, Antenne de Jalès, Maison de L’Orient et de la Méditerranée, Université Lumière-Lyon 2/CNRS, Lyon, France

    Linda Herveux

Authors
  1. Vladimir Dabrowski
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  2. Charlène Bouchaud
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  3. Xavier Desormeau
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  4. Linda Herveux
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  5. Elora Chambraud
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  6. Saskia E. Ryan
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  7. Margareta Tengberg
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and analysis were performed by VD, CB, LH, EC, XD, SER, MT. The first draft of the manuscript was equally written by VD and CB and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Vladimir Dabrowski or Charlène Bouchaud.

Additional information

Communicated by D. Fuks.

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Dabrowski, V., Bouchaud, C., Desormeau, X. et al. A tale of new crops in the arid Arabian Peninsula oasis from antiquity to the early Islamic period. Veget Hist Archaeobot (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-023-00976-4

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