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( Millet)
The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal crops or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Their essential similarities are that they are small-seeded grasses grown in difficult production environments. It was millets, rather than rice, that formed important parts of prehistoric diet in Chinese Neolithic and Korean Mumun societies. The millets include species in several genera, mostly in the subfamily Panicoideae, of the grass family Poaceae. The most widely cultivated species in order of worldwide production[1] are. Minor millets include Specialized archaeologists called palaeoethnobotanists, relying on data such as the relative abundance of charred grains found in archaeological sites, hypothesize that the cultivation of millets was of greater prevalence in prehistory than rice,[2] especially in northern China and Korea. Broomcorn (Panicum miliaceum) and Foxtail millet were important crops beginning in the Early Neolithic of China. For example, some of the earliest evidence of millet cultivation in China was found at Cishan (north) and Hemudu (south). Cishan dates to 7000-5000 BCE and contained pit-houses, storage pits, pottery, stone tools related to cultivation, and carbonized foxtail millet. A 4000 year old well-preserved bowl containing well-preserved noodles made from foxtail millet and broomcorn millet was found at the Lajia archaeological site in China.[3]
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