Archaeological excavations in Toda Cave, located in southern Uzbekistan's Surkandarya Valley, have uncovered compelling evidence of early agricultural practices dating back approximately 9,200 years. An international team discovered artifacts, including charcoal, stone tools, and plant remnants, in the cave's oldest strata. These findings suggest a sophisticated subsistence strategy involving the collection of wild barley, pistachios, and apples.
Analysis of stone blades and flakes indicates their use as sickle-like tools, mirroring agricultural techniques observed globally. This discovery challenges the notion that the Natufian culture of the Levant was the sole origin of early agriculture, proposing that similar farming behaviors emerged independently across different regions. Xinying Zhou from China's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology stated, "This discovery should change the way that scientists think about the transition from foraging to farming, as it shows how widespread the transitional behaviors were."
The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicates that these cultural developments were more widespread than previously understood. Robert Spengler of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology noted, "A growing body of research suggests that domestication occurred without deliberate human intent, and the finding that people continually developed the behaviors which lead to agriculture supports this view." This perspective suggests that early communities gradually refined behaviors that eventually led to agriculture, rather than through a single, intentional act of domestication.
The findings from Toda Cave align with similar evidence from other Central Asian sites, such as the Jeitun culture in Turkmenistan, which also points to early farming practices. The research team plans to investigate whether the barley found in Toda Cave represents an early stage of cultivation, potentially identifying another significant ancient hub of experimental farming. The presence of sickle-like tools, dating back 9,200 years, significantly expands the geographical understanding of early human agricultural development, pushing the timeline and location of these crucial transitional behaviors further east than previously established.