Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MILWAYS (PAST & FUTURE MILLET FOODWAYS)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-06-01 al 2025-11-30
Throughout history, humans cultivated thousands of plant species for food, often integrating diverse, resilient crops adapted to local climates and cultural preferences. However, today, we have forgotten most of those species and rely fully on a few water and nutrient-demanding crops. Understanding the factors that shaped the adoption, spread, and eventual abandonment of staple crops in the past is therefore critical to informing sustainable food systems and agricultural adaptation strategies today.
Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum), domesticated in northern China over 7,000 years ago, represents one of the least understood examples of crop dispersal and adaptation. As the first major cereal to spread across Eurasia, millet reached as far north as 60°N latitude—an exceptional feat for a thermophilic C4 plant. Despite its proven resilience, short growth cycle, and superior nutritional profile, millet’s cultivation and status in Europe declined sharply in modern times, with the crop now virtually absent from regions where it once thrived.
The MILWAYS project addresses this knowledge gap by investigating the environmental, cultural, and physiological factors that influenced millet’s integration and decline across Europe from the 2nd millennium BCE to modern times. Through a highly interdisciplinary and innovative approach, MILWAYS seeks to uncover why, how, and by whom millet was adapted, rejected, or abandoned, and to explore its potential as a climate-resilient crop for the future.
Millet’s unique biochemistry makes it ideal for tracing across time and space. Its C4 photosynthesis results in higher carbon isotopic values than C3 plants, and it contains the durable miliacin biomarker, both detectable in various anthropic contexts. MILWAYS combines these signals with archaeological, demographic, and paleoclimate data to reconstruct millet’s history at an unprecedented resolution. The project also links millet’s physiological adaptation to its geographic spread by studying its performance under different daylight and temperature conditions in controlled experiments. Historical texts and archaeobotanical data provide cultural context, showing how millet’s status shifted from staple to marginal food and how these changes correlated with climate fluctuations, migration, and evolving cultures.
The MILWAYS project has four main scientific objectives:
1. Identify the mechanisms of crop adoption and abandonment over time: By linking human dietary patterns, mobility, demographics (age, sex, social status), and environmental change on a local scale, the project will uncover how cultural and climatic factors shaped millet use.
2. Develop novel methodologies for studying past diets and climates: Combining stable isotopes, biomarkers, proteomics, palaeoclimate reconstruction, and archaeobotanical evidence, MILWAYS introduces cutting-edge, integrative methods transferable to other crops and contexts.
3. Advance understanding of millet physiology and its adaptation limits: Controlled experiments and genetic studies of millet landraces will clarify how the crop adapted to high latitudes, informing strategies to exploit its potential under current and future climatic conditions.
4. Build predictive models of crop exploitation for sustainable food systems: Using historical, environmental, and cultural data, the project will develop models to guide re-integration of neglected, resilient crops like millet into modern agriculture.
Geographically, MILWAYS focuses on eastern-central Europe, from Ukraine and Moldova through Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, up to the climatic limit of historical millet cultivation near Estonia. This region encompasses key zones of early millet adoption and areas where its decline remains poorly understood, providing a unique opportunity to study the interaction of environmental thresholds and cultural choices.
MILWAYS reveals the complex interactions between humans, crops, and environments by analysing the causes of biodiversity change over thousands of years. Along with developing novel methodologies in studying past human diet, MILWAYS provides a comprehensive understanding of millet’s role in past food systems and its potential for the future. By investigating why millet succeeded or failed in various cultural and environmental settings, the project addresses critical questions about food security, biodiversity, and climate adaptation. Findings will inform sustainable agriculture by identifying neglected, low-input crops suited to marginal environments and changing climates.
Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum), domesticated in northern China over 7,000 years ago, represents one of the least understood examples of crop dispersal and adaptation. As the first major cereal to spread across Eurasia, millet reached as far north as 60°N latitude—an exceptional feat for a thermophilic C4 plant. Despite its proven resilience, short growth cycle, and superior nutritional profile, millet’s cultivation and status in Europe declined sharply in modern times, with the crop now virtually absent from regions where it once thrived.
The MILWAYS project addresses this knowledge gap by investigating the environmental, cultural, and physiological factors that influenced millet’s integration and decline across Europe from the 2nd millennium BCE to modern times. Through a highly interdisciplinary and innovative approach, MILWAYS seeks to uncover why, how, and by whom millet was adapted, rejected, or abandoned, and to explore its potential as a climate-resilient crop for the future.
Millet’s unique biochemistry makes it ideal for tracing across time and space. Its C4 photosynthesis results in higher carbon isotopic values than C3 plants, and it contains the durable miliacin biomarker, both detectable in various anthropic contexts. MILWAYS combines these signals with archaeological, demographic, and paleoclimate data to reconstruct millet’s history at an unprecedented resolution. The project also links millet’s physiological adaptation to its geographic spread by studying its performance under different daylight and temperature conditions in controlled experiments. Historical texts and archaeobotanical data provide cultural context, showing how millet’s status shifted from staple to marginal food and how these changes correlated with climate fluctuations, migration, and evolving cultures.
The MILWAYS project has four main scientific objectives:
1. Identify the mechanisms of crop adoption and abandonment over time: By linking human dietary patterns, mobility, demographics (age, sex, social status), and environmental change on a local scale, the project will uncover how cultural and climatic factors shaped millet use.
2. Develop novel methodologies for studying past diets and climates: Combining stable isotopes, biomarkers, proteomics, palaeoclimate reconstruction, and archaeobotanical evidence, MILWAYS introduces cutting-edge, integrative methods transferable to other crops and contexts.
3. Advance understanding of millet physiology and its adaptation limits: Controlled experiments and genetic studies of millet landraces will clarify how the crop adapted to high latitudes, informing strategies to exploit its potential under current and future climatic conditions.
4. Build predictive models of crop exploitation for sustainable food systems: Using historical, environmental, and cultural data, the project will develop models to guide re-integration of neglected, resilient crops like millet into modern agriculture.
Geographically, MILWAYS focuses on eastern-central Europe, from Ukraine and Moldova through Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, up to the climatic limit of historical millet cultivation near Estonia. This region encompasses key zones of early millet adoption and areas where its decline remains poorly understood, providing a unique opportunity to study the interaction of environmental thresholds and cultural choices.
MILWAYS reveals the complex interactions between humans, crops, and environments by analysing the causes of biodiversity change over thousands of years. Along with developing novel methodologies in studying past human diet, MILWAYS provides a comprehensive understanding of millet’s role in past food systems and its potential for the future. By investigating why millet succeeded or failed in various cultural and environmental settings, the project addresses critical questions about food security, biodiversity, and climate adaptation. Findings will inform sustainable agriculture by identifying neglected, low-input crops suited to marginal environments and changing climates.
During the reporting period, the MILWAYS project made significant progress across all its scientific work packages, advancing its objectives through innovative research, sample collection, laboratory analysis, and methodological development.
The MILWAYS team have developed a novel methodology that allows access even to low levels of millet consumption and in turn to detect the consumption of underrepresented plants in the past. The first site-level integration of millet biomarker and high-resolution palaeoclimate data was conducted in different regions of Europe. The reconstruction of millet’s changing role in historical agriculture, along with an extensive archaeobotanical database, is now published as an open-access resource.
The MILWAYS team have developed a novel methodology that allows access even to low levels of millet consumption and in turn to detect the consumption of underrepresented plants in the past. The first site-level integration of millet biomarker and high-resolution palaeoclimate data was conducted in different regions of Europe. The reconstruction of millet’s changing role in historical agriculture, along with an extensive archaeobotanical database, is now published as an open-access resource.
The MILWAYS project has achieved substantial progress and is on track to deliver its planned outcomes. MILWAYS successfully conducted isotopic and biomarker analysis of human and animal remains to track millet cultivation and consumption across Europe, with 4 major manuscripts submitted to scientific journals. MILWAYS developed novel methodologies that will be described in detail after the manuscripts are accepted for publication. In addition, the project’s team had analysed extensive archaeobotanical and climatic records to understand the links between paleoclimate data and shifts in agricultural practices, which resulted in a scientific publication and the creation of an open-access archaeobotanical database covering Eastern Baltic regions, with ongoing expansion. MILWAYS project successfully organised an international workshop and broadly disseminated the project via >20 high-profile conference presentations, workshops, media interviews, and collaborations. The project team carry active engagement with industry and farming stakeholders, resulting in increased millet cultivation and novel product development. The MILWAYS project also carries out field and greenhouse trials of millet genotypes along with historical research on millet’s cultural role in European diets.
The project already demonstrates potential for scientific, societal, economic and environmental impacts:
Breakthrough methodologies and high-resolution datasets advance archaeological, environmental, and isotopic research beyond the state-of-the-art.
Reviving knowledge of underutilised, climate-resilient crops (like millet) informs sustainable food systems and biodiversity conservation.
Insights into resilient crop strategies directly contribute to food security and bioeconomy policy debates in the context of climate change.
Engagement with international researchers, industries, and farmers supports wider adoption of findings, particularly in regions vulnerable to climate change.
The project already demonstrates potential for scientific, societal, economic and environmental impacts:
Breakthrough methodologies and high-resolution datasets advance archaeological, environmental, and isotopic research beyond the state-of-the-art.
Reviving knowledge of underutilised, climate-resilient crops (like millet) informs sustainable food systems and biodiversity conservation.
Insights into resilient crop strategies directly contribute to food security and bioeconomy policy debates in the context of climate change.
Engagement with international researchers, industries, and farmers supports wider adoption of findings, particularly in regions vulnerable to climate change.