Genome Sequencing of up to 6,000-Year-Old Citrullus Seeds Reveals Use of a Bitter-Fleshed Species Prior to Watermelon Domestication.

Iconographic evidence from Egypt suggests that watermelon pulp was consumed there as a dessert by 4,360 BP. Earlier archaeobotanical evidence comes from seeds from Neolithic settlements in Libya, but whether these were watermelons with sweet pulp or other forms is unknown. We generated genome sequences from 6,000- and 3,300-year-old seeds from Libya and Sudan, and from worldwide herbarium collections made between 1824 and 2019, and analyzed these data together with resequenced genomes from important germplasm collections for a total of 131 accessions.

Molecular Clocks and Archeogenomics of a Late Period Egyptian Date Palm Leaf Reveal Introgression from Wild Relatives and Add Timestamps on the Domestication.

The date palm, Phoenix dactylifera, has been a cornerstone of Middle Eastern and North African agriculture for millennia. It was first domesticated in the Persian Gulf, and its evolution appears to have been influenced by gene flow from two wild relatives, P. theophrasti, currently restricted to Crete and Turkey, and P.

Microbotanical evidence of domestic cereals in Africa 7000 years ago.

The study of plant exploitation and early use of cereals in Africa has seen over the years a great input from charred and desiccated macrobotanical remains. This paper presents the results of one of the few examples in Africa of microbotanical analyses. Three grave contexts of phytolith-rich deposits and the dental calculus of 20 individuals were analysed from two Neolithic cemeteries in North and Central Sudan.