Harriet Hunt

Contact Information

Harriet Hunt
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
University of Cambridge
Downing Street
Cambridge CB2 3ER

Tel.: +44 (0)1223 339330
Fax: +44 (0)1223 339285
E-mail: hvh22 [at] cam.ac.uk

Dr Harriet Hunt

Post-Doctoral Researcher in Archaeogenetics

Much research on the origins of agriculture has focused on today’s three major cereal crops: wheat, rice and maize. However, a number of other cereals have also been important in the human diet in particular times or places. One such crop is broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) which appears in a number of Neolithic sites both in northern China and Eastern Europe. As part of the collaborative 'East--West Millet Project', I have been characterising polymorphic loci in broomcorn millet with the aim of better understanding the origin and spread of domestic broomcorn millet. I have also been examining the genetics of the genus Panicum as a whole.

Collaborators

Loukas Barton, US National Park Service, Anchorage, Alaska, USA
Jérémy Jacob, ISTO – CNRS/Université d’Orléans, France
Yong-Jin Park, National Agro-biodiversity Center, National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, Suwon, Republic of Korea
Christian Tobias, USDA-ARS, Western Regional Research Center, Albany, California, USA

Origins and Spread of Broomcorn Millet, Panicum miliaceum

Characterising Polymorphic Loci in Millet

My work is characterising polymorphic genetic loci in Panicum miliaceum which can then be used to map genetic variation in this species and understand where it was domesticated, and how it spread across Eurasia. We are collaborating with Dr Christian Tobias (USDA Western Regional Research Center, Albany, California, USA) to develop microsatellite markers in broomcorn millet.

The genetics work is complemented by archaeobotanical and stable isotope studies being carried out by PhD students Giedre Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute and Xinyi Liu in the George Pitt-Rivers Laboratory

This research is supported by the Leverhulme Trust and the Wellcome Trust

Molecular Genetics of Panicum Species

Subsidiary projects include: 1) characterisation of broomcorn millet varieties from across Eurasia for starch endosperm phenotype (waxy or non-waxy) and molecular analysis of the GBSS1 locus that governs this phenotype, in collaboration with Dr Kay Denyer (John Innes Centre, Norwich) and 2) analysis of duplicated gene loci believed to result from a polyploidisation event, and how these can be used for reconstructing evolutionary history in the genus Panicum.

Publications and Presentations

Hunt, HV & MK Jones. in press. Pathways across Asia: exploring the history of Panicum and Setaria in the Indian subcontinent. Pragdhara.

Hunt, HV, M Vander Linden, X Liu, G Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute, S Colledge & MK Jones. 2008. Millets across Eurasia: chronology and context of early records of the genera Panicum and Setaria from archaeological sites in the Old World. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 17 (Suppl 1): S5-S18.  DOI 10.1007/s00334-008-0187-1.

Liu, X, HV Hunt & MK Jones, MK. 2009. River valleys and foothills: changing archaeological perceptions of North China’s earliest farms. Antiquity 83: 82-95.

Hunt, HV, X Liu, G Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute & MK Jones. 2007. Corridors across the Eurasian steppe: the ancestry and Neolithic record of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.). Lecture delivered at the 14th Symposium of the International Work Group for Palaeoethnobotany, Krakow, Poland.

Hunt, HV, MA Bower, CJ Howe & MK Jones. 2006. Diversity and domestication in the genus Panicum (Poaceae). Poster presented at ‘Plants, People and Evolution’ symposium, Linnean Society, London.

Hunt, HV & MK Jones. 2006. Origins and spread of domesticated broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum). Lecture delivered at ‘First Farmers in Global Perspective’ symposium, Lucknow, India.