Old World globalization and the Columbian exchange: comparison and contrast

2012/09/01 by Nicole Boivin, Dorian Q. Fuller, Alison Crowther · 9 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Agriculture #Archaeology #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Conceptualization #Economic growth #Economics #Economy #Fell #Geography #Globalization #History #Isotope Analysis in Ecology #Law #Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies #Philosophy #Political science #Prehistory #Productivity #Social science #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1080/00438243.2012.729404

openalex publication_date 2012/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

A recent paper by Jones et al. (Food globalization in prehistory, World Archaeology, 2011, 43(4), 665–75) explores a prehistoric ‘Trans-Eurasian’ episode of food globalization characterized by the long-distance exchange of starch crops. Drawing upon a comparison to the Columbian Exchange, they emphasize the role of fast-growing crops in optimizing productivity, giving minimal consideration to other drivers. Here we re-evaluate the sequence and timing of the Trans-Eurasian exchange and give greater consideration to the social dimensions of plant translocation. We outline a model for thinking about plant translocations that highlights the way the conceptualization and use of introduced plants changes through time, with social factors frequently dominating in the early stages.

Citations

• Domestication of Plants in the Old World
• A Movable Feast
• Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World
• Agricultural development in western Central Asia in the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages
• Plants and Progress: Rethinking the Islamic Agricultural Revolution
• Early cultivated wheat and broadening of agriculture in Neolithic China

Cited by

• Millet agriculture dispersed from Northeast China to the Russian Far East: Integrating archaeology, genetics, and linguistics
• The early history of wheat in China from 14C dating and Bayesian chronological modelling
• Of Seeds, Seasons, and Seas: Andrew Watson's Medieval Agrarian Revolution Forty Years Later
• Rethinking the spread of agriculture to the Tibetan Plateau
• Between China and South Asia: A Middle Asian corridor of crop dispersal and agricultural innovation in the Bronze Age
• Cannabis in Eurasia: origin of human use and Bronze Age trans-continental connections
• Revealing a 5,000-y-old beer recipe in China
• Earliest tea as evidence for one branch of the Silk Road across the Tibetan Plateau
• Christopher Columbus [wikipedia]

Related

• The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas
• Disentangling Domestication from Food Production Systems in the Neotropics
• Between China and South Asia: A Middle Asian corridor of crop dispersal and agricultural innovation in the Bronze Age
• Origins of food crops connect countries worldwide
• Domestication of Plants in the Old World