A brief history of wheat utilization in China

Abstract

Wheat is one of the most important crops in both China and the world, and its domestication can be traced back to ~10000 years ago. However, the history of its origin and utilization in China remains highly ambiguous. Drawing upon the most recent results of taxonomic, genetic, archeological and textual studies focused on the wheat in prehistory, this paper argues that wheat was not domesticated but introduced into China in the late fifth millennium BP. In the subsequent centuries, this exotic crop was quickly utilized as a staple food in northwest China. In contrast, it was not adopted as a staple in the Central Plains until the Han Dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), which was mainly as a consequence of the living environment, population and innovations in food processing technology.

Keywords

multidisciplinary evidence / prehistoric food globalization / wheat consumption / wheat domestication

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFA0606402), Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Pan-Third Pole Environment Study for a Green Silk Road (Pan-TPE) (XDA2004010101), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31570334; 41620104007; 41825001).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Minxia Lu, Liang Chen, Jinxiu Wang, Ruiliang Liu, Yang Yang, Meng Wei, and Guanghui Dong declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose

This article is a review and does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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