sanguinalis: Polish millet Genus Echinochloa: collectively, the members of this genus are called barnyard grasses or barnyard millets; other common names to identify these seeds include Jhangora, Samo seeds or Morio / Mario / Moraiaya seeds Echinochloa esculenta: Japanese barnyard millet Echinochloa frumentacea: Indian barnyard millet, also known as Sawa millet, Kodisama in Telugu and Kuthirai vaali in Tamil and Bhagar or Varai in Marathi Echinochloa oryzoides Echinochloa stagnina: Burgu millet Echinochloa crus-galli: Common barnyard grass (or Cockspur grass) Paspalum scrobiculatum: Kodo millet (also known as Arikelu in Telugu, Varagu in Tamil, Haraka in Kannada and Kodhra in Punjabi) Brachiaria deflexa: Guinea millet Brachiaria ramosa: Browntop millet (also known as Korle in Kannada) Spodiopogon formosanus: Taiwan oil millet, endemic to Taiwan Andropogoneae tribe, also in the subfamily Panicoideae: Sorghum bicolor: Sorghum; usually considered a separate cereal, but sometimes known as great millet Coix lacryma-jobi: Job's tears, also known as adlay millet History The various species called millet were initially domesticated in different parts of the world most notably East Asia, South Asia, West Africa, and East Africa. However, the domesticated varieties have often spread well beyond their initial area. Specialized archaeologists called palaeoethnobotanists, relying on data such as the relative abundance of charred grains found in archaeological sites, hypothesize that the cultivation of millets was of greater prevalence in prehistory than rice, especially in northern China and Korea. Millets also formed important parts of the prehistoric diet in Indian, Chinese Neolithic and Korean Mumun societies. Domestication in East Asia Proso millet (Panicum miliaceum) and foxtail millet (Setaria italica) were important crops beginning in the Early Neolithic of China. Some of the earliest evidence of millet cultivation in China was found at Cishan (north), where proso millet husk phytoliths and biomolecular components have been identified around 10,300–8,700 years ago in storage pits along with remains of pit-houses, pottery, and stone tools related to millet cultivation. Evidence at Cishan for foxtail millet dates back to around 8,700 years ago. The oldest evidence of noodles in China were made from these two varieties of millet in a 4,000-year-old earthenware bowl containing well-preserved noodles found at the Lajia archaeological site in north China. Palaeoethnobotanists have found evidence of the cultivation of millet in the Korean Peninsula dating to the Middle Jeulmun pottery period (around 3500–2000 BCE). Millet continued to be an important element in the intensive, multicropping agriculture of the Mumun pottery period (about