Sorghum domestication

What it is

Impressions of sorghum with a non-shattering rachis on pottery of the Butana Group, the oldest evidence of sorghum domestication, a drought-tolerant African cereal. An African agricultural centre independent of the Fertile Crescent.

Winchell et al. (2017) place domestic sorghum c. 3500–3000 BCE; previous consensus placed it c. 2000 BCE. Additional African centres: pearl millet (Mali, c. 2500 BCE), yam and oil palm (West Africa).

What it led to

• Dryland farming of the Sahel and Sudan, the demographic basis of sub-Saharan Africa
• Spread of sorghum to India (c. 2000 BCE) and then across the tropical world
• Sorghum beer and porridge as a staple African food

Built on

• Wild grass seed grinding (wild sorghum)c. 105 ka
• Saddle quern and mortarc. 9000 BCE
• Gathering of wild Saharan grasses
• Saharan pottery

Made possible

• Pearl millet domesticationc. 2500 BCE
• Fonio (Digitaria exilis) domesticationprehistoria (sin datación firme)
• Tetracycline in Nubian beerc. 350-550 CE (hallazgo en 1980)
• Hageen Dura-1 Striga-resistant sorghum hybrid1983
• Sorghum beer
• Sahelian agriculture

Links

Sources✓ verified 2026-09-23

• https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1574602/
• https://phys.org/news/2017-09-earliest-evidence-native-african-cultigen.html