Food globalisation in prehistory – how did existing culinary traditions influence crop distribution?

The globalisation of food crops can be traced back thousands of years. Between 7000 and 3500 years ago, crops like wheat and barley moved from southwestern Asia to China, whilst broomcorn and millet moved from China to the west across Eurasia. Despite this, cooking practices have remained deeply divided between east and west. So what happened when wheat and barley travelled into the east and millet into the west?

Dr Xinyi Liu, Associate Professor of Archaeology, Washington University in St. Louis. Works featured in this video are led by Dr Liu and members of Washington University's LAEF lab (Laboratory for the Analysis of Early Food-Webs) and Cambridge University's FOGLIP project (Food Globalization in Prehistory).