Press Releases & News Media
IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
Archaeology Magazine // January/February 2025
Top 10 Discoveries of 2024: Origins of the Scythians
“A discovery in a remote region of Siberia has revealed evidence that the once-obscure origins of the Scythians lie much farther east than previously envisioned…While excavating at a site in the Republic of Tuva in southern Siberia, a team of archaeologists including Gino Caspari of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and Timur Sadykov and Jegor Blochin of the Russian Academy of Sciences unearthed fragmentary human and animal remains atop a late ninth-century b.c. mound known as Tunnug 1. They determined the remains belonged to several people and 18 horses, which they believe were all sacrificed to honor an elite person buried inside.”
The Past, Present, and Future of the Human Niche // November 3, 2023
Prof Greger Larson and Dr Robert Spengler converse about domestication
Rob and Greger discuss domestication and the archaeological trail of evidence for how it came about.
AramcoWorld // July 1, 2023
“It’s cloning,” says Spengler. As the grafted scion grows from branch into a full tree canopy, it isn’t just the same species and variety as the favored tree; “it’s the same individual.” Geneticists are showing some clonal varieties last centuries without changing. “It’s a completely different way of thinking about an organism,” he adds. “It’s really amazing that humans figured all this out 3,000 years ago.”
Press Release: Scientists find ways to study and reconstruct past scents // March 28, 2022
“In a new call for action paper published in Nature Human Behaviour, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, discuss the importance of scent in human history and address how and why experts might investigate smells from the past.” —ScienceDaily
“ID’ing odor molecules and brewing Cleopatra’s perfume are part of new research on past scents.” —ScienceNews
“Can ancient smells help us time travel through human history? Inside ‘sensory archaeology’ and the challenge of studying the scents of artifacts.” —Popular Science
Podchaser // February 12, 2022
From the Steppe to Your Table - with Robert N. Spengler
A discussion of the role of the steppe in spreading many of the important foods, from grains to fruit and spices, that we all enjoy today.
Science // September 15, 2021
Milk fueled Bronze Age expansion of ‘eastern cowboys’ into Europe
“To see what might have fueled the Yamnaya’s success, researchers from the United States, Europe, and Russia looked for milk proteins trapped and preserved in the dental calculus of people living on the steppes of modern-day Russia between 4600 and 1700 B.C.E. They examined 56 skeletons from more than two dozen sites north of the Caspian Sea.”
Voices on Central Asia // August 18, 2021
“Fruit from the Sands: The Silk Road Origins of the Foods We Eat”. An Interview with Robert Spengler
“Dr. Spengler is interested in the vast area between China and Europe, which was long thought to be a space for passing through rather than a source of anything significant, and his interest is physical and archeobotanical. His book confirms that this diverse land—arid in some areas and extremely fertile in others—is home to a vast range of crops, from almonds and apples to tea and rice.”
Archaeology Magazine // January/February 2020
Top 10 Discoveries of 2019: On the Origins of Apples
“Researchers are now one step closer to understanding how apples made the journey from wild populations to grocery stores and farmers markets around the world, and how that process differed from the domestication of grasses such as wheat and rice…As part of a quest to determine how apples were domesticated, archaeobotanist Robert Spengler of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History has combined the fossil and archaeological evidence with genetic studies comparing modern apples to their ancient ancestors. He has concluded that the first human populations to encounter wild apples took on a role once performed by now-extinct megafauna, dispersing seeds and pollen, and, inadvertently, expanding the fruit’s range.”
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World // 2020
“Despite the many difficulties posed by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the Uzbek-American Expedition to Bukhara, co-directed by Sören Stark and Jamal K. Mirzaakhmedov managed to carry out a highly successful season of fieldwork.”
The Global Lives of Indian Cotton // 2020
“By 1000 CE, cotton seeds appear in archaeological sites across the Persian Gulf region to the central Asian highlands. While the spread of cotton through this region pre-dated Islamic expansion in areas like northwestern Uzbekistan, the expansion of trade networks across the Silk Road helped cotton spread to Beijing, Tehran, and Venice. This trade concentrated wealth through networks of exchange across Eurasia and Africa.”
Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology // December 1, 2020
Agropastoralists in Central Tibet Chose a Barley-Based Farming System by 3,000 Years Ago
“Crop transitions are usually tied to complex sets of factors,” says Dr. Robert Spengler of the Max Planck Institute. “We speculate that a combination of factors drove this specific crop transition, including cold tolerance, low irrigation requirements, fuel-saving qualities, and benefit for a mobile pastoralism lifestyle.”
Sapiens // October 16, 2020
“In 2019, archaeologists working in western China announced another major discovery: the oldest known evidence of cannabis smoking by humans. They uncovered 2,500-year-old braziers, vessels designed to create large quantities of smoke, that contained residues of a highly potent form of cannabis—suggesting that the plant was burned and inhaled.”
The New York Times // May 11, 2020
Eating in Xi’an, Where Wheat and Lamb Speak to China’s Varied Palate
“It thrives on dry summers and winter rain, the opposite of the climate in northern China, and its migration here in the third millennium B.C. from the Fertile Crescent, a sweep of land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf, was an early example of ingredients crossing borders, as the archaeobotanist Robert N. Spengler III notes in ‘Fruit From the Sands: The Silk Road Origins of the Foods We Eat’ (2019).”
Press Release: How Millets Sustained Mongolia’s Empires // March 3, 2020
“This study pulls the veil of myth and lore off of the real people who lived in Mongolia millennia ago and lets us peek into their lives.” —Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
“The evidence challenges popular theories that Mongolia represents a unique example of dense human populations and hierarchical political systems developing without intensive farming or stockpiling grains.” —Cosmos
“The study shows an increase in grain consumption and dietary diversity through time, leading up to the well-known Mongolian Empire of the Khans.” —Phys.org
“During the Xiongnu Empire, human populations displayed a larger range of carbon values, showing that some people remained on the diet common in the Bronze Age, but that many others consumed a high amount of millet-based foods.” —ScienceDaily
Press Release: Rethinking the Origins of Plant Domestication // February 27, 2020
“The earliest traits of plant domestication are linked to a mutualistic relationship in which plants recruited humans for seed dispersal.” —Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
“The domestication of plants and animals is one of the most important factors in the demographic shifts and cultural changes that have led humanity into the modern world.” —Cosmos
“The apple tree put extensive amounts of energy into producing high-sugar fruits in order to entice animals to spread the seeds.” —Signs of the Times (SOTT)
“The earliest traits to evolve in the wild relatives of modern domesticated crops are linked to human seed dispersal and the evolutionary need for a plant to spread its offspring.” —ScienceDaily
“Humans provide better seed dispersal services for food crops than those plants would have had in the wild.” —Phys.org
Press Release: 5200-Year-Old Cereal Grains From the Eastern Altai Mountains // February 14, 2020
“Agricultural crops dispersed across Eurasia more than five millennia ago, causing significant cultural change in human populations across the ancient world. New discoveries in the Altai Mountains illustrate that this process occurred earlier than believed.” —Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
“The mingling of crops originating from opposite ends of Asia resulted in the crop-rotation cycles that fueled demographic growth and led to imperial formation.” —Phys.org
“In this study, scientists illustrate that people moved these crops across Eurasia earlier than previously realized, adapting cultivation methods for harsh agricultural environments.” —ScienceDaily
“Radiocarbon dating shows that the grains include the oldest examples of wheat and barley ever recovered this far north in Asia, pushing back the dates for early farming in the region by at least a millennium.” —Geology Page
“Agricultural crops dispersed across Eurasia more than five millennia ago, causing significant cultural change in human population across the ancient world.” —Bioengineer.org
ThoughtCo. // November 19, 2019
"Broomcorn millet seeds were recently found at the central Eurasian site of Begash, Kazakhstan, and Spengler et al. (2014) argue that this represents evidence for the transmission of broomcorn outside of China and into the broader world."
Futurity // July 2019
Thank Bison and Their Dung for Domesticated Quinoa
Natalie Mueller and Robert Spengler “have been interested in plant domestication since they were graduate students together at Washington University, under Gayle Fritz, one of the first scholars to recognize the importance of the American Midwest as a center of crop domestication."
Press Release: The Origins of Cannabis Smoking // June 12, 2019
“A chemical residue study of incense burners from ancient burials at high elevations in the Pamir Mountains of Western China has revealed psychoactive cannabinoids.” —Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
“Residue found in tombs deep in a Central Asian mountain range suggests that strong cannabis was used in ancient burial rites.” —The New York Times
“A new study suggests ancient humans used cannabis to commune with nature, spirits, or even the dead.” —Smithsonian Magazine
“The debate of cannabis use in Central Asia has been lively and filled with speculation.” —ABC News
“Crucially, high-elevation mountain passes of Central and East Asia, including the Pamir region, hosted trade routes of the early Silk Road, which linked China with West Asia and Europe, says archaeobotanist and study co-author Robert Spengler.” —Science News
“Further north in Xinjiang…there are other…finds of cannabis in burials, and these populations were clearly living in desert oases.” —GlacierHub
“The new research provides a solid, unequivocal data point for actual use of this plant as a drug.” —The Washington Post
Press Release: Exploring the Origins of the Apple // May 27, 2019
“Apples originally evolved in the wild to entice ancient megafauna to disperse their seeds. More recently, humans began spreading the trees along the Silk Road with other familiar crops. Dispersing the apple trees led to their domestication.” —Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
“In this study, Robert Spengler traces the history of the apple from its wild origins, noting that it was originally spread by ancient megafauna and later as a process of trade along the Silk Road.” —ScienceDaily
“I see the apple case study as a wonderful contribution to our broader understanding of plant domestication. The results demonstrate that there were very different pathways towards domestication for different plants.” —Courthouse News Service
“Long before the Silk Road was founded, the course of apple breeding and evolution was shaped by another major selective force—and it wasn’t humans.” —ZME Science
“Both the genetic and the fossil evidence seem to suggest that large fruiting varieties seem to go back to the late Miocene.” —DW Science
“Robert Spengler has traced the wild apple all the way back to it’s wild origins.” —Earth.com
ThoughtCo. // March 31, 2019
The Ancient Societies of the Central Asian Steppe: Bronze Age Mobile Pastoralists of Central Asia
"Spengler and colleagues argue that these nomadic herders were one of the ways in which these crops moved outside of their domestications: broomcorn from the east; and wheat and barley from the west."
Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology // January 1, 2019
FEDD: Fruits of Eurasia Domestication and Dispersal
“Robert Spengler’s project, Fruits of Eurasia: Domestication and Dispersal, will allow him to step beyond the heavy focus on cereal crops in domestication studies, to look more closely at long-generation perennials, notably fruit and nut trees.”
Science News // December 13, 2018
Corn Domestication Took Some Unexpected Twists and Turns
“The new study highlights a growing realization that pathways toward domestication differed for various plants and animals, says paleoethnobotanist Robert Spengler of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany.”
Press Release: Origins and Spread of Eurasian Fruits on the Ancient Silk Road // August 14, 2018
“New research reveals that many of the most familiar fruits in our kitchens today were cultivated in Central Asia over a millennium ago. These arboreal crops appear to have been an important part of the diet, and likely the commerce, along the Eurasian trade routes.” —Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
“The archaeobotanical study…is among the first systematic analyses of medieval agricultural crops in the heart of the ancient Silk Road.” —Phys.org
“Studies of ancient preserved plant remains from a medieval archaeological site in the Pamir Mountains of Uzbekistan have shown that fruits, such as apples, peaches, apricots, and melons, were cultivated in the foothills of Inner Asia.” — ScienceDaily
“History is very Eurocentric, and so everybody thinks that Rome was one of the major hubs of the Silk Road…the traders and the major economic and political players of the Silk Road were in Central Asia, and it has been a region largely overlooked in scholarship.” —Atlas Obscura
Botany One // June 12, 2018
The Increasingly Fluid Silk Road
“This work adds to that of Robert Spengler III et al., that underlines the importance of agriculture and exchange to social developments of the communities in Central Asia during the Iron Age, in the first millennium BC/BCE.”
The Diplomat // April 11, 2018
How Ancient Exchanges in Central Asia Shaped the Modern World
Spengler’s work has shown that for at least 4,000 years, the mountains of Central Asia (and the people who lived in them) helped to move domestic crops such as millet, wheat, barley, and rice into parts of the continent where they were previously unknown. “As early as the 3rd millennium BCE,” he says, “exchange in crop varieties across Central Asia shaped the economies of the ancient world.
ScienceNews // November 15, 2017
How Asian Nomadic Herders Built New Bronze Age Cultures
"Herders moving through those valleys brought southwestern Asian crops into China and eastern Asian crops back the other way, says archaeologist Robert Spengler. While working their way across Asia through mountain valleys, pastoralists incorporated crops into their own way of life."
Max Planck Research // August 23, 2017
Change That Came From the Plowed Field
"All over the globe, it was agriculture that set off wide-ranging social changes. The exception is the area that is today's Mongolia, Western China, and Eastern Russia: the textbook opinion since the 1930s. ... For around ten years now, this worldview has been showing cracks. The man stirring up trouble -- in a positive sense -- is Robert Spengler." (pages 26-33)
Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog // September 29, 2015
Wheat that Goes Around, Comes Around
“There’s lots of fascinating material in Robert Spengler’s new review paper on agriculture in the Central Asian Bronze Age.”
Awkward Botany // November 2, 2014
“Concern about food and the environment has been on the rise for a while now. Interest in healthy food grown and produced in a responsible manner has prompted people to investigate where their food is coming from. Archaeologists studying plant domestication and the rise of agriculture are also concerned with where our food came from; however, their research efforts are more focused on prehistoric events rather than on what is being stocked on today’s grocery store shelves.”
Press Release: Ancient Nomads Spread Earliest Domestic Grains Along Silk Road // April 7, 2014
“Nomadic shepherds in the high plains of Central Asia used grain imported from China and southwestern Asia more than 5,000 years ago, according to a new study—perhaps to sprinkle over bodies in funeral rituals.” —The New York Times
“This is one of the first systematic applications of archaeobotany in the region, making the potential for further future discovery very exciting.” —Phys.org
“Nomadic sheepherders played a surprisingly important role in the early spread of domesticated crops throughout a mountainous east-west corridor along the historic Silk Road.” —Popular Archaeology
“Charred grains of barley, millet, and wheat deposited nearly 5,000 years ago at campsites in the high plains of Kazakhstan show that nomadic sheepherders played a surprisingly important role in the early spread of domesticated crops.” —Heritage Daily