Pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) Domestication and Dispersal Out of Central Asia

The pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) is commercially cultivated in semi-arid regions around the globe. Archaeobotanical, genetic, and linguistic data suggest that was brought under cultivation somewhere within its wild range, spanning southern Central Asia, northern Iran, Afghanistan. Historically, has primarily relied on grafting, suggesting that, as with many Eurasian tree crops, domestication resulted from genetically locking hybrids or favored individuals place. Plant dispersal research largely focused weedy, highly adaptable, self-compatible annuals; this discussion, we present a case study involves dioecious long-lived perennial—a process would have required completely different traditional ecological knowledge system than utilized for grain cultivation. We argue spreading westward by at least 2000 years ago (maybe few centuries earlier to mountains of modern Syria) moved eastward only end first millennium AD. seeds remain rare archaeological sites outside native even into mid-second AD, may not been widely until past hundred years.