Giedre Motuzaite Matuceviciute (Université de Vilnius) présentera les travaux réalisés dans le cadre de son projet ERC MILWAYS lors d’un séminaire le mercredi 12 novembre (11h, en salle 118) intitulé « A biomolecular approach to millet journey across time and space« .
Abstract:
The past dispersal of various crop species across the world drove an important set of transformations in human lifeways. Crop domesticates with different geographical origins, such as wheat and barley from southwest Asia or broomcorn millet and buckwheat from East Asia, compose a unique mosaic of culinary heritage which has undergone continuous transformation as new crops have joined our cuisines. However, we have a remarkably thin understanding of how new crops moved over time, were integrated as staple foods among past populations, and why certain crops were never accepted or later abandoned.
A multi-faceted investigation of a pioneering crop in Eurasian food globalization – broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) – can help to answer many of these questions, as it stands out from all the other cereals due to its unique and traceable biochemical properties.
In my talk I will hypothesize that by applying biomolecular analyses to the unique biochemistry of millet in tandem with other novel methods, the distribution of millet consumers could be both geographically and chronologically traced with respect to human culture, culinary preferences, demographic categories of sex and age, social status, individual mobility history and palaeoclimates. This knowledge could lead not only to identifying the key mechanisms involved in the adoption, exploitation and eventual rejection of millet cultivation and consumption by past societies, but also to develop a better understanding of the patterns of agricultural dispersal as a whole – one of the most important transformations in human history. This research is a part of ERC_CoG project – MILWAYS that tightly collaborates with the CNRS: Laboratory for Climate and Environmental Sciences.
