Sorghum, yams and the African centres
Sahel and West African farmers domesticate crops suited to unreliable rain.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 1.7 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 1 thousand years
- Era
- Neolithic, Holocene
Sorghum and pearl millet are domesticated across the Sahel, African rice in the Niger floodplain, and yams and oil palm in the West African forest margin, mostly from the fifth millennium BCE onward as the Sahara dries and populations concentrate south of it. These crops tolerate drought and poor soils far better than Near Eastern cereals, which is why they remain the staples of the region rather than being displaced by wheat and barley.