Recovery of chloroplast genomes from medieval millet grains excavated from Areni-1, southern Armenia

Areni-1 is an archaeological cave site in southern Armenia that has yielded a large amount of exceptionally well preserved archaeobotanical material dating to the Late Chalcolithic (4300–3400 cal BC) and Medieval (4th–18th centuries AD) periods. Five millet grains excavated from Areni-1 dating to the medieval period (radiocarbon dates: 873 ± 36 BP and 1118±35 BP) and identified by morphology as Panicum miliaceum L. (broomcorn millet) were used to extract ancient DNA. Using hybridization capture enrichment near complete chloroplast genomes were constructed from three of the Areni-1 millet grains. A phylogeny of grass plastid references and the medieval chloroplast genomes confirmed the identification of the Areni-1 grains as broomcorn millet.