Dear Otto (and others),
Checked my reference here, and avaiable evidence points towards a South
Asian origin of Solanum melongena. Although closely related species occur
in Africa, cultivars in Africa may be a relatively late arrival. In terms
of references a good starting point is B. Choudhury (1995) "Eggplant" in
Smart and SImmonds (eds) Evolution of Crop Plants, 2nd ed.; and F. J.
SImoons (1991) Food in China. A Cultural and Historical Inquiry. CRC Press
(Ann Arbor)-- the latter is the best available general source on the
origins and dispersal of crops that are important in China, including many
SOuteast Asian taxa.
Unfortunately, the archaeobotny for early aubergines remains problematic.
Certainly seeds of Solanum are fairly widespread (e.g. in my SOuth Indian
Neolithic samples sometimes; and on some sites which Kajale has published),
but the detailed comparative morphological studies to distinguish melongena
from its wild congeneric Indian relatives remain to be done on the basis of
seeds (e.g. seed coat patterns).
Dorian
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Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 14:38:21 +0100
From: Otto Brinkkemper <[log in to unmask]>
To: "d.fuller" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Betr.: Re: Finds of Solanum melongena??
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Hi Dorian,
Thank you for this important information! Do you happen to have
any reference for that? Zohary and Hopf don't mention aubergine
in their 3rd ed of Domestication of plants in the Old World, but
that does only include East-Asia and the Nile Valley in their book!
Regards,
oTTo
Dr. Dorian Q Fuller
Lecturer in Archaeobotany
Institute of Archaeology
University College London
31-34 Gordon Square
London WC1H 0PY
(020) 7679 4771
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/profiles/fuller/index.htm
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