New evidence for early 4th millennium BP agriculture in the Western Himalayas: Qasim Bagh, Kashmir

Abstract

Palaeobotanical studies at Qasim Bagh, a site of the Northern Neolithic culture in the Kashmir Valley, India, have produced important new data on the spread of agriculture across Inner Asia, and on the cross-transmission of Chinese and West Asian cultivars. Directly dated broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) and compact wheat (Triticum aestivum), and a series of charcoal dates suggest that the Valley of Kashmir was integrated into a wider network of crop exchange in the mountainous regions of South and Central Asia from at least the 5th/4th millennium BP transition. The evidence of Qasim Bagh supplements recent data from other Central Asian sites which suggest that exchange of East and West Asian cultivars took place earlier than previously believed.