Early Harvesting Technology in Uzbek Cave Complicates Narrative About Spread of Agriculture

Archaeology Magazine ^ | August 27, 2025 | editors / unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

While the development of agriculture is often associated with the Fertile Crescent, past research has shown that farming actually developed independently at different times and places around the world, including Africa, the Americas, and eastern Asia. New evidence from a cave in southern Uzbekistan continues to show that the advent and spread of agricultural technology is more complicated than originally thought, according to a statement released by the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. Recent archaeological work in Toda Cave uncovered evidence that the region's inhabitants were already engaging in sophisticated harvesting practices 9,200 years ago. Wear patterns on stone tools found at the site indicate that the community was cutting wild barley, grasses, and other plant material with sickle-type blades. This new research demonstrates that peoples living far north and east of the Fertile Crescent had already developed cultivation techniques similar to those used by farmers in the Middle East. "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," said Xinying Zhou of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To read about recent reevaluation of an ancient Serbian community that scholars initially believed exhibited evidence of foraging and agricultural traits, go to "Farmers and Foragers."

[SunkenCiv]

2019 excavations in Toda Cave, Uzbekistan

© Robert Spengler

[SunkenCiv]

[ClearCase_guy]

bfl

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

While the Ohalo II site is in the Fertile Crescent it also shows signs of small scale farming and is quite a bit older.

[dfwgator]

Just don’t give them money or matches.

[Wuli]

“Recent archaeological work in Toda Cave uncovered evidence that the region’s inhabitants were already engaging in sophisticated harvesting practices 9,200 years ago. “

About 3,000 years after the beginning of the ending of the last ice age, and possibly after “the great flood(s)”.

[imabadboy99]

translation: the ‘experts’ don’t know jack squat

[GingisK]

It is common for important inventions or discoveries to occur simultaneously in places that are far apart. One example is the vacuum tube triode, which was invented in the United States and England concurrently. (DeForrest, US; Fleming, UK)

[bert]

Was it farming or gathering with a sickle tool?

[SunkenCiv]

In modern times, global communication simplifies (ahem) the process. Isolated populations coming up with the same or similar solutions is suggestive of the necessity/invention model. :^)

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Sickles were found, the fact that the seeds found were mostly of only 13 types argues for cultivation and the grinding stone argues for the fact that rather then being something that they ate when they could find it grains were something that they harvested repeatedly.

We have been farming a much longer time then people think.

Atlit Yam and Ohalo II are two of my favorite areas of study right now. Yeah they are not big stone buildings but to me they are far more interesting.