Humans first began cultivating wheat about 10,500 years ago. From the original farming locations in the Near East, the practice spread slowly. Eastern Europeans began growing wheat 8 to 9,000 years ago and then it made its way westward until it crossed the English Channel about 6,000 years ago.

However, a recent discovery at a submerged archeological site has raised some interesting questions. Researchers working at the Bouldner Cliff site have found an 8,000 year old DNA sample that suggests the presence of wheat which was, almost certainly, not grown there or anywhere else in England.

Boulder Cliff is a site 36 feet underwater and 800 feet offshore from Bouldnor, near Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight. The 8,000 year old settlement was first identified in 1999 when a lobster was spotted pushing small, stone age tools from its burrow.

One of the ways samples are collected from the underwater site is called box sampling. This is done by thrusting metal sampling boxes into freshly exposed soil at the site. The box is then sealed and transported to the surface of the sea until it can be examined more closely at the lab. Some of the material extracted from the brick then undergoes DNA analysis.

A recent sample turned up something completely unexpected.

“Amongst our Bouldner Cliff samples we found ancient DNA evidence of wheat at the site, which was not seen in mainland Britain for another 2,000 years. However, wheat was already being grown in southern Europe. This is incredibly exciting because it means Bouldner’s inhabitants were not as isolated as previously thought. In fact, they were in touch, one way or another, with more advanced Neolithic farming communities in southern Europe,” said Robin Allaby of the University of Warwick to Scientific American.

In a paper published in the journal Science, the research team showed that the wheat remains were more closely related to Near Eastern domesticated wheat than the wild varieties which grew in the area. The researchers also found no evidence of pollen which means that the wheat which means that it is almost a certainty that it was imported from elsewhere.

This suggests previously unguessed at trade routes between the neolithic people of Bouldner Cliff and, at the least, Southern Europe.

The Mesolithic people who lived in the area were generally thought to be nomadic. Bouldnor Cliff, however, shows some signs of more long term settlement.

At the time the artifacts date from the area would have been a sheltered valley, surrounded by forest with a lake and river. Tools found at the site are 2,000 more advanced than what archeologists originally expected. In addition to stone tools, researchers have found string and evidence of woodworking along with semi-permanent structures.

“There appears to be evidence of a boat building yard and tools more advanced than anything we’ve found on land – on a level of 2,000 years ahead all preserved perfectly in the silt underwater,” Garry Momber, director of the Maritime Archaeology Trust told the BBC in November, 2014.

An accompanying piece in the journal, by Greger Larsen of Durham University, discusses how DNA is helping scientists to learn more about history by tracing the movements of plants and animals.