African yam domestication
Domesticación del ñame africano
- Date
- before c. 2000 BCE (estimado) · confidence low
- Place
- Middle Niger basin, Nigeria
- Credited to
- Farmers of the West African savanna-forest belt
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Domestication of white yam (Dioscorea rotundata) from the forest species D. praehensilis in the Niger basin, between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. It is the foundation of the West African yam belt, which today produces most of the world's yams.
Genomics (Scarcelli et al., Science Advances, 2019) places the origin in the Niger basin from D. praehensilis; the date is very uncertain because tubers leave scarcely any archaeological trace.
What it led to
- tuber farming on the forest margin
- new-yam festivals and agricultural calendars
- the population density of southern Nigeria