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Revealing study on 16 centuries old cotton farming
03 Apr '12
4 min read
The study's findings that the Qasr Ibrim seeds were of the G. herbaceum variety, native to Africa, rather than G.arboreum, which is native to the Indian subcontinent, represents the first molecular-based identification of archaeobotanical cotton to a species level.
Dr Allaby said the findings confirm there was an indigenous domestication of cotton in Africa which was separate from the domestication of cotton in India.
“The presence of cotton textiles on Egyptian and Nubian sites has been well documented but there has always been uncertainty among archaeologists as to the origin of these.
“It's not possible to identify some cotton varieties just by looking at them, so we were asked to delve into the DNA.
“We identified the African variety – G. herbaceum, which suggest that domesticated cotton was not a cultural import – it was a technology that had grown up independently.”
The study Archaeogenomic evidence of punctuated genome evolution in Gossypium, which was funded by NERC, is published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
Dr Allaby said the findings confirm there was an indigenous domestication of cotton in Africa which was separate from the domestication of cotton in India.
“The presence of cotton textiles on Egyptian and Nubian sites has been well documented but there has always been uncertainty among archaeologists as to the origin of these.
“It's not possible to identify some cotton varieties just by looking at them, so we were asked to delve into the DNA.
“We identified the African variety – G. herbaceum, which suggest that domesticated cotton was not a cultural import – it was a technology that had grown up independently.”
The study Archaeogenomic evidence of punctuated genome evolution in Gossypium, which was funded by NERC, is published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
University of Warwick
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