The History of Carrots

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	History Part 1 - A Brief Timeline
	History Part 2 - Neolithic to AD 200 - Origins and development
	History Part 3 - AD 200 to 1500 - From Medicine to Food
	History Part 4 - 1500 to 1700 - Evolution and Improvement in the Renaissance
	History Part 5 - 1700 to 1900 - Science & Enlightenment - the modern carrot evolves
	History Part 6 - 1900 to date - The Modern Carrot and Genetic Discovery
	History of Carrot Colour - The road to domestication and the origin of Orange Carrots
	History in WW2 - Takes an in depth look of the role of carrots in World War Two, reviving its popularity
	Illustrations of Carrot in Ancient Manuscripts and Early Printed Books

The cultivated carrot is one of the most important root vegetables grown in temperate regions of the world. It was derived from the wild carrot, which has whitish/ivory coloured roots. The most popular carrot in modern times is the orange rooted carrot and it is now known from modern genetic research, to be derived from yellow rooted domestic varieties (Massimo Iorizzo, Simon et al Nature Genetics volume 48, pages 657–666 2016).  Early writings in classical Greek and Roman times refer to edible white roots, but these may have also been parsnips, or both. There are white rooted carrots in existence today, are often used as animal feed or a novelty crop, but nevertheless gaining popularity for public consumption. This colour first appeared in the late 1500's.

While the modern carrot is known as a bright orange root crop, the original carrots domesticated in Central Asia ca. 900 CE were purple and yellow (Banga 1963) There is some evidence for orange carrots earlier in history (Stolarczyk and Janick 2011), but it was not until six centuries after domestication that orange roots appeared consistently in the historical records, including paintings.

Wild carrot is indigenous to Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, with its center of diversity in present day Afghanistan (Vavilov and Dorofeev 1992). Based on most historical records, the first evidence of carrot being cultivated as a food crop was in the Iranian Plateau and Persia in the 10th century (Banga 1957a,b, 1963; Food in Antiquity, Brothwell and Brothwell 1969), and molecular evidence supports a Central Asian origin of domesticated carrot (Iorizzo et al. 2013). During Arab expansion post the tenth century CE, the roots were brought east to Andalusia (in what is now Spain) and from Spain spread to the rest of Northern Europe.

For the medieval Arabs, one of the points to enter Europe was Andalusia. This region was extremely attractive for them as it is the only European region with both Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. In fact, the filtrations from the Ocean and the Sea gave to the soils in this locality, different properties, so genuine species that entered Andalusia in the past, are today considered autochthonous of this region due to the endemic climatology and the characteristics of the soil.

There are some documents in the County Hall of Cuevas Bajas (Andalusia) that purport to show the cultivation of an orange/purple variety from Medieval Times and there is a commercial letter talking about the exchange with the merchants of the Silk Route. It is said that the Arabs brought this variety from North Africa to Andalusia via the Silk Road in the 14th century. This has yet to be examined by the Museum Curator.

Carrot cultivation spread westward to North Africa and Europe, and eastward to Asia. Orange roots appeared in Spain and Germany in the 15th or 16th century (Stolarczyk and Janick 2011), and quickly became the predominant colour. It is considered that these carrots were sweeter and did not stain cookware and cooking water, which helped make them more popular than purple carrots.

The earliest vegetable definitely known to be a carrot dates from the 10^th  century in Persia and Asia Minor and would have been quite unlike the orange rooted carrot of today. It is considered that Carrots were originally purple or possibly white with a thin root, then a mutant occurred which removed the purple pigmentation resulting in a new race of yellow carrots, from which orange carrots were subsequently developed.

The centre of diversity for the carrot is in Central Asia, and the first cultivation of carrot for its storage root is reported to be in the Afghanistan region, approximately 1,100 years ago (Mackevic 1929). Long before carrot was domesticated, wild carrot had become widespread, as seeds were found in Europe dating back nearly 5,000 years ago. Today wild carrot is found around the world in temperate regions, particularly in wild areas, road sides and agricultural land.

Wild carrot appears in many temperate regions of the world, far beyond its Mediterranean and Asian centres of origin where this plant displays great diversity. Almost certainly those ancient cultures in these regions used wild and early forms of the domesticated carrot as a herb and a medicine before they were used as a root vegetable in the conventional sense of that term today. It is also quite likely that the seeds were used medicinally in the Mediterranean region since antiquity (Banga 1958).

There is good genetic evidence that wild carrot is the direct progenitor of the cultivated carrot (Simon 2000). Selection for a swollen rooted type suitable for domestic consumption undoubtedly took many centuries.

Carrot domestication transformed the wild carrot with its relatively small, thin, white, heavily divided (forked or sprangled - spread in different directions) strong flavoured taproot of a plant with annual biennial flowering habit into a large, orange (eventually), smooth, good flavoured storage root of a uniformly biennial or “winter” annual crop we know today. Modern carrot breeders have further refined the carrot, improving flavour, sweetness, reducing bitterness and improving texture and colour. There have also been significant improvements in disease and pest reduction resulting in ever increasing yields.  Flavour, nutritional and processing qualities are also uppermost in the minds of modern breeders.

There are two main types of cultivated carrots:

Shape, colour and flavour. were surmised as selection criteria in the domestication of the carrot. The cultivated carrot can be mainly classified into the anthocyanin, or eastern-type, carrot (e.g., yellow or purple) and the carotene, or western-type, carrot (e.g., yellow, orange, or red) based on the pigmentation in the roots.

1) Eastern/Asiatic or anthocyanin carrots:  (Daucus carota ssp. sativus var. atrorubens Alef.) These are often called anthocyanin carrots because or their purple/black roots, although some have yellow roots. These are cultivars traditionally grown in Turkey, Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, and India. They always have thicker, shorter, narrow, conical root, and pubescent leaves giving them a gray-green colour, and bolt easily. The greatest diversity of these carrots is found in Afghanistan, Russia, Iran and India. These are possible centres of domestication, which took place around the 10th century.  These types are generally poorer in provitamin A carotenoid content

Anthocyanin carrots are still under cultivation in Asia, but are being rapidly replaced by orange rooted Western carrots.

2) Western or Carotene carrots: (Daucus carota ssp. sativus var. sativus)  These have orange, red or white cylindrical or tapered roots and less pubescent leaves. Most likely these carrots derived from the first group by selection among hybrid progenies of yellow Eastern carrots, white carrots and wild subspecies grown in the Mediterranean.

Carotene carrots are relatively recent, from the 1500's. Orange carrots were probably first cultivated in Norhtern Europre, probably the Netherlands/Spain/Germany or Switzerland. Present cultivars seem to originate from long orange varieties developed there. Adaptation to northern latitudes has been accompanied by change in photoperiod response.

The viewpoint that the eastern-type cultivated carrot was domesticated from the wild carrots in the area around Afghanistan is generally agreed upon.  A recent study based on the transcriptome data analysis also supports the hypothesis that the eastern-type cultivated carrot originated in Western Asia.

The western-type cultivated carrot was thought to originate from eastern-type carrots directly, based on the earliest molecular study about carrot domestication. In contrast, Heywood held the idea that western-type cultivated carrots did not originate directly from the eastern-type carrot . He summarized the hypothesis that there was a secondary domestication event in the domestication of western-type cultivated carrot . According to a recent study, western-type orange carrots may also originate from eastern carrots by introgression from wild carrots . Areas around Afghanistan are generally agreed to be the geographic regions of the first cultivation of eastern-type carrots. To determine the geographic regions of the first cultivation of western-type carrots, more genetic sequencing studies are needed. It is thought that orange carrots first appeared in Northern Europe, possibly Spain/Holland/Germany Switzerland. (Source: Que, F., Hou, XL., Wang, GL. et al.Advances in research on the carrot, an important root vegetable in the Apiaceae family. Hortic Res 6, 69 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41438-019-0150-6) download here.

OVERVIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF CARROTS -

Carrots originated in the Himalayas and Hindu Kush centre of the continent and moved in both directions on the Silk Road. (The Silk Road was an ancient network of trade routes, formally established during the Han Dynasty of China, which linked the regions of the ancient world in commerce between 130 BCE-1453 CE. As the Silk Road was not a single thoroughfare from east to west, the term 'Silk Routes’ has become increasingly favoured by historians, though 'Silk Road’ is the more common and recognized name. (read more here at Wikipedia)

It is generally assumed that the eastern, purple-rooted carrot originated in Afghanistan in the region where the Himalayan and Hindu Kush mountains meet, and that it was domesticated in Afghanistan and adjacent regions of Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan and Anatolia. Purple carrot, together with a yellow variant, spread to the Mediterranean region and western Europe in the 11–14th centuries, and to China, India and Japan in the 14–17th centuries.

The discovery of a purple carrot attracted more interest from international traders. Traders carried purple carrots south to India and west to Baghdad, then to Spain, and then to the rest of Europe by 1000 AD. People did more experimenting. By the 1000s people were breeding red and yellow carrots in West Asia, and they had reached Spain by the 1100s, about the same time as lemons. Kublai Khan brought carrots east to China about 1300 AD.

The cultivated carrot is believed to have originated from forms with roots coloured purple anthocyanins as well as yellow mutants lacking anthocyanins. These forms spread to the West and East reaching Asia Minor around the 10th or 11th centuries, Arab occupied Spain in the 12th century, continental North West Europe by the 14th century. England in the early 15th century. Before the 16th century carrots were purple or yellow with long roots. The yellow roots were often preferred because they did not release anthocyanins during cooking. In the late 15th century it is considered that Dutch growers developed a denser orange carotene carrot from yellow varieties and this deep orange carrot was the progenitor of the modern cultivated carrot we know. (Image right from Australian WW2 seed catalogue)

The first evidence of carrot used as a food crop is in the Iranian Plateau and the Persian Empire in the 10th century AD (Brothwell & Brothwell 1969). These original carrot roots were purple and yellow in colour. From Persia, cultivated carrot spread to surrounding areas. Orange carrots appear to have become popular in the 16th century when Dutch and Spanish paintings began depicting orange carrots in market scenes (Banga 1963), although orange carrots likely originated much earlier (Stolarczyk & Janick 2011). Banga (1957) first hypothesized that orange carrots were initially selected from yellow cultivars and this is now supported by modern genetic analyses (Simon et al 2016).

The western, orange carrot probably arose in Europe or in the western Mediterranean region through gradual selection within yellow carrot populations. The Dutch landraces Long Orange and the finer Horn types, first described in 1721, were an important basis for the western carrot cultivars grown at present all over the world.

The word "carrot" was first recorded in English around 1530 and was borrowed from Middle French carotte, itself from Latin carōta, from Greek καρωτόν karōton. In Old English, carrots (typically white at the time) were not clearly distinguished from parsnips, the two being collectively called moru or more (from Proto-Indo-European *mork- "edible root", German for carrot is Möhre). Various languages still use the same word for "carrot" as they do for "root"; e.g. in Dutch it is wortel. Full explanation the etymology is recorded in a separate page in the Carrot Museum here.

Wild Carrot - Both the wild and the cultivated carrots belong to the species Daucus carota. Wild carrot is distinguished by the name Daucus carota, Carota, whereas domesticated carrot belongs to  Daucus carota, sativus.

Wild carrot is more in evidence than cultivated carrots in classical sources. They had edible leaves and thin, strong tasting white roots which ere prescribed for medicinal purposes. Names include Greek keras, staphylinos agrios, daukos and Latin daucus, pastinaca rustica. According to Pliny and Dioscorides these had aphrodisiac properties. (References:Dioscorides MM 3,35;Pliny NH 19,89, also 20.30-2 citing ‘Orpheus’, also 25.110-12;Galen SF 12.129)

An early form of carrot began to be cultivated in the last few centuries BCE. It is first mentioned in the 3^rd century BCE by Diphilus of Siphnos. It was diuretic; it was also juicier and more digestible than the parsnip. This carrot was not red (or orange), it was whitish and understandably confused with parsnip as the same plant. The “redness” feature is thought to have emerged in varieties developed in post classical times, after hybridisation with a central Asian species in the early Middle ages. The first European author who mentions red and yellow carrots is the Byzantine dietician Simeon Seth, in the 11^th century.

(references: Dioscorides MM 3,57, E 2.101;Galen AF 6.654, SF 11.862; Athenaeus D 371d-e citing Diphilus of Siphnos (karo); Simeon Seth p35 Langkavel)

The Carrot has a somewhat obscure history, surrounded by doubt and enigma and it is difficult to pin down when domestication took place. The wide distribution of Wild Carrot, the absence of carrot root remains in archaeological excavations and lack of documentary evidence do not enable us to determine precisely where and when carrot domestication was initiated.

Over thousands of years it moved from being a small, tough, bitter and spindly root to a fleshy, sweet, pigmented unbranched edible root. Even before the introduction of domesticated carrots, wild plants were grown in gardens as medicinal plants.

When carrot is grown in favourable conditions the roots of successive generations enlarge quickly. So the evolution of cultivars with enlarged roots can easily be explained, but what has puzzled historians is why it took so long for the modern cultivated, edible carrot to appear. The clue is that, although evidence of wild carrot seeds have been found in pre-historic cave dwellings and Greek and Roman records they were only used in medicinal applications and not for consumption of the root, as a food.

Unravelling the progress of the peregrinating carrot through the ages is complex and inconclusive, but nevertheless a fascinating journey through time and the history of mankind.

The Wild Carrot is the progenitor (wild ancestor) of the domestic carrot (direct descendent) and both still co-exist in the modern world.  Wild Carrot is indigenous to Europe and parts of Asia and, from archaeological evidence, seeds have been found dating since Mesolithic times, approximately 10000 years ago. One cannot imagine that the root would have been used at that time, but the seeds are known to be medicinal and it is likely the seeds were merely gathered rather than actually cultivated.

Wild carrot has a small, tough pale fleshed bitter white root; modern domestic carrot has a swollen, juice sweet root, usually orange.   Carrots were originally recorded as being cultivated in present day Afghanistan about 1000 years ago, probably as a purple or yellow root like those pictured here.  Carrot cultivation spread to Spain in the 1100s via the Middle East and North Africa. Purple, white and yellow carrots were brought into southern Europe in the 14th century and were widely grown in Europe into the 16th Century. Purple and white carrots still grow wild in Afghanistan today where they are used by some tribesmen to produce a strong alcoholic beverage. Over the ensuing centuries, orange carrots came to dominate and carrots of other colours were only preserved by growers in remote regions of the world.

Nature then took a hand and produced mutants and natural hybrids, crossing both with cultivated and wild varieties. It is considered that purple carrots were then taken westwards where it is now known, through modern genetic research, that yellow varieties were developed to produce orange. Then some motivated Dutch growers took these "new" orange carrots under their horticultural wings and developed them to be sweeter, consistent and more practical. Finally we have the French to thank for popular modern varieties such as Nantes and Chantenay, with credit to the 19th century horticulturist Louis de Vilmorin, who laid the foundations for modern plant breeding.    It's a long story..................... 

First cultivation - where and when. The Domesticated Carrot

The time frame and geographic region(s) of the first cultivation of carrots are unclear.  N Vavilov (1926) identified Asia Minor (eastern Turkey) and the inner Asiatic regions as the centers of origin of cultivated carrot and noted Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) as being “the basic center of Asiatic kinds of cultivated carrots” where “wild carrots … practically invited themselves to be cultivated”. (Vavilov, N.I. 1926. Studies on the Origin of Cultivated Plants. 248 pp. Leningrad.)

More recent work e.g. by Harlan (1992), suggests that a centre of origin for a given spp is not necessarily the centre of diversity - Vavilov concluded that a centre of origin was characterized by dominant alleles while towards the periphery, the frequency of recessive alleles increased and the genetic diversity decreased. Vavilov's original concept was modified by Harlan J.R (1971) who proposed that crops may have originated from centres and non-centres  Centre: A delimited geographical area where a crop was domesticated and from which it was distributed to other areas. Non-centre: A broad geographical area where a crop was domesticated and from which it was distributed to other areas.

As observed by the presence of carrot seed at prehistoric human habitations 4000 to 5000 years ago ( Newiler, 1931), it is speculated that wild carrot seed was used medicinally or as a spice ( Andrews, 1949 ; Brothwell and Brothwell, 1969).

Carrot was cultivated and used as a storage root similar to modern carrots in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and perhaps Anatolia beginning in the 10th century (Mackevic, 1932 ; Zagorodskikh, 1939). On the basis of historical documents, the first domesticated carrot roots were purple and yellow and recorded in Central Asia, Asia Minor, then in Western Europe and finally in England between the 11th and 15th centuries ( Banga, 1963 ). Interestingly, orange carrots were not well documented until the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe ( Banga, 1957a , b ; Stolarczyk and Janick, 2011 ), indicating that orange carotenoid accumulation may have resulted from a secondary domestication event.

The cultivated carrot is believed to originate from Afghanistan before the 900s, as this area is described as the primary centre of greatest carrot diversity (Mackevic 1929), Turkey being proposed as a secondary centre of origin (Banga 1963). The first cultivated carrots exhibited purple or yellow roots. Carrot cultivation spread to Spain in the 1100s via the Middle East and North Africa. In Europe, genetic improvement led to a wide variety of cultivars. White and orange-coloured carrots were first described in Western Europe in the early 1600s (Banga 1963). Concomitantly, the Asiatic carrot was developed from the Afghan type and a red type appeared in China and India around the 1700s (Laufer 1919; Shinohara 1984). According to this history, it makes sense to envisage that colour should be considered as a structural factor in carrot germplasm.

Root types of these early carrots were categorized as yellow or purple and a flavour difference coincided with the colour. In Persia and Arabia, yellow carrots were generally regarded as more acrid in flavour and less succulent than purple carrots (Clement-Mullet 1864).

In the US Department of Agriculture circular dated March 1950 are listed 389 names that have been applied to orange-fleshed carrot varieties or strains. This gave a thorough classification of all varieties of orange rooted carrots found in the US at the time. On the basis of their general or outstanding characteristics these varieties or strains were classified in 9 major groups, as follows: I, French Forcing; II, Scarlet Horn ; III, Oxheart ; IV, Chantenay ; V, Danvers ; VI, Imperator; VII, James' Intermediate; VIII, Long Orange; and IX, Nantes (Synonymy of Orange-Fleshed Varieties of Carrots M F  Babb 1950).

Morphological characteristics lead to a division of the cultivated carrot (Daucus carota subsp. sativus) into two botanical varieties: var. atrorubens and var. sativus (Small 1978).

Var. atrorubens refers to carrots originating from the East, exhibiting yellow or purple storage roots and poorly indented, grey-green, pubescent foliage. Var. sativus refers to carrots originating from the West and exhibiting orange, yellow or sometimes white roots, and highly indented, non-pubescent, yellow-green foliage (Small 1978). Many intermediate variants exist between these two types.
 

Early evidence

Fossil pollen from the Eocene period (55 to 34 million years ago) has been identified as belonging to the Apiaceae (the carrot family). 

Almost five thousand years ago, carrots were firstly cultivated in the Iranian Plateau and then in Persian Empire. Western and Arabic literatures along with the studies by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reveal that carrots were originated in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. It should be noted, however, that there were no Afghanistan or Pakistan in those olden days and the Iranian Plateau (a term which covers Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran) must be considered as the land of origin for carrots.

The Carrot Field of Iran (right)

There is a specific place in present day Iran that is called as the Carrot Field or Carrot Plain (in Persian: Dasht-e Haveej د شت هویج ). That Field may be an evidence for the long standing historical record of carrot recognition and cultivation in Iran. The Field is located in Afjeh village near Lavasan, a city north east of Tehran the capital of Iran. Presently, the farming activities in the Carrot Field are reported as various crops (but not much carrots) and fruits (mostly Cherry گیلا س ).

Very early evidence of the consumption of carrots (seeds) has also been found in prehistoric Swiss lake dwellings (Brothwell and Brothwell, 1969). It is said that the cultivated and edible carrot dates back about 5,000 years ago when the purple root was found to be growing in the area now known as Afghanistan. Temple drawings from Egypt in 2000 BC show a purple plant, which some Egyptologists believe could possibly be a purple carrot. Egyptian papyruses containing information about treatments with seeds were found in pharaoh crypts, but there is no direct carrot reference and no documentary evidence to corroborate this assumption. The Carrot Museum has visited several tomb paintings in the Valleys of Luxor and some images are compelling. It known that ancient Egyptians did use other members of the Apiaceae family (carrot) including anise, celery and coriander. None of these plants would have been used as root crops, but were rather leaf, petiole or seed crops.. Several books on the subject make conjecture about this but there is never proper documentary evidence that the Egyptians grew or ate carrots.  Read more on this here.

Further discussion and reference material on whether the ancients used carrots, either the roots, seeds or flowers is detailed here.

Many colourful varieties were later found in Asia and there is also evidence of their use in Greece during the Hellenistic period. However, it is not known whether or not the Egyptians or Greeks cultivated a very edible plant or if they only grew wild carrots for their seeds, if they did it would most likely be for medicinal use. It likewise found a place as a medicinal plant in the gardens of ancient Rome, where it was used as an aphrodisiac and in some cases as part of a concoction to prevent poisoning.  Mithridates VI, King of Pontius (120bc-63bc) had a recipe including Cretan carrots seeds, which actually worked!

Carrots are said to have been recognised as one of the plants in the garden of the Babylonian King Marduk-apla-iddina, the Biblical Merodach-Baladan ll, who reigned at Babylon in 721–710 and 703 BC. There is no documentary evidence for this carrot reference. The clay tablet with cuneiform inscription located in the British Museum shows 67 plants of which only 26 have been identified so far, but no carrots.

The Carrot was well known to the ancients. Pedanius Dioscorides (c. 40-90ad) catalogued over 600 medicinal plant species during his first century travels as a roman army doctor and accurately describes the modern carrot.   The Greek herbal of Pedanios Dioskurides, latinized as Pedanius Dioscorides (20–70 CE), is entitled Peri Ylis Ialikis (PYI) and latinized as De Materia Medica, On Medical Matters. It was written about the year 65. It was destined to be one of the most famous books on pharmacology and medicine but is also rich in horticulture. This non-illustrated work contained descriptions of about 600 plants, 35 animal products, and 90 minerals emphasizing their medicinal uses. The  Greek Herbal of Dioscorides: Illustrated by a Byzantine in A.D. 512, refers to Orange Carrot - Dioskorides Codex Vindobonensis Medicus Greacus - Staphylinos Keras - The cultivated carrot-pictured right.

Dioscorides wrote "Ye root ye thickness of a finger, a span long, sweet-smelling, edible being sodden [boiled]. Of this ye seed being drank...and it is good for ye [painful discharge of urine] in potions, and for ye bitings and strokes of venomous beasts; they say also, that they which take it before hand shall take no wrong of wilde beasts. It cooperates also to conception, and it also being [diuretic], both provoketh [poison], and being applied; but the leaves being beaten small with honey, and laid on, doth cleanse rapidly spreading destructive ulceration of soft tissues." (Mitch, 1998).

The name Karota for the garden Carrot is found first in the writings of Athenaeus (3rd century CE), and in the book on cookery by Apicius Czclius.  The Athenaeus work called "The Deipnosophistae" (Book IX (Part 1 of 5) , which means "dinner-table philosophers recorded that Diphilus said of the carrot "This is pungent, very nourishing and fairly wholesome, with a tendency to loosening and windiness; not easy to digest, very diuretic, calculated to rouse sexual desire; hence by some it is called love-philtre." Athenaeus also notes that "Staphulinos (carrot) is called astaphilinus by Diocles in the first books of 'Matters on Health'. The so-called karaton (which is big and quickly growing carrots) is more tasty than the staphulinos and more heating, more diuretic, easily digested and wholesome"

Karota was simultaneously mentioned in "The Hermeneumata" (Greek: Ἑρμηνεύματα; also known as the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana or Hermeneumata pseudo-Dositheana), which were anonymous instructional manuals, for schools, written in the third century CE to teach the Greek language to Latin-speaking people in the Roman Empire, and to teach Latin to Greek-speakers. Afterwards they were periodically copied by successive generations of monks.

The Hermeneumata contain (amongst other things) a list of vegetables in Greek and Latin, and they say that the Latin name pastinaca is considered a synonym of the Greek names stafilinos, karota and daukos. They do not tell us what kind of root crops are indicated by these names. (The word Hermeneumata means "translation" or "interpretation".)

Carrot was mentioned by Greek and Latin writers by various names, but it was Galen (circa second century A.D.) who called it Daucus to distinguish the Carrot from the Parsnip. The common resemblance of many umbelliferous plants leads us to suspect that they were imperfectly distinguished by the ancients and therefore descriptions of plants could be applied to several very similar plants. 

Carrot and parsnip in particular have often been confused in historical references and in many cases were interchangeable, as those early carrots which were "dirty white" were very similar (in looks at least) to parsnip.  They are of course from the same family. In classical and mediaeval writings both vegetables seem to have been sometimes called pastinaca yet each vegetable appears to be well under cultivation in Roman times. Since in many cases only the written word exists, if the Medieval writer called the plants "pastinaca", it is difficult to know if they were referring to carrots or parsnips.

Throughout the Classical Period and the Middle Ages writers constantly confused carrots and parsnips. This may seem odd given that the average carrot is about six inches long and bright orange while a parsnip is off white and can grow 3 feet, but this distinction was much less obvious before early modern plant breeders got to work. The orange carrot became established in the 1500's probably in the Low Countries. Its original colour varied between dirty white and purple. Both vegetables have also got much fatter and fleshier in recent centuries, and parsnips may have been bred to be longer as well. In other words early medieval carrots and parsnips were both thin and woody and mostly of a vaguely whitish colour. This being the case, almost everyone up to the early modern period can perhaps be forgiven for failing to distinguish between the two, however frustrating this may be for the food or agriculture historian.  See separate page showing illustrations from ancient manuscripts.

The name Karota for the garden Carrot is found first in the Roman writings of Athenaeus in 200 A.D., and in a book on cookery by Apicius Czclius in 230 A.D.

After the fall of Rome, a period often referred to as the Dark Ages, carrots stopped being widely seen (or at least recorded) in Europe until the Arabs reintroduced them to Europe in the Middle Ages around 1100. Scribes continued to reproduce and embellish previous manuscripts, rather than observing and representing the existing contemporary native plants.

The third book of Dioscorides the Greek – Roots -  sets out an account of roots, juices, herbs, and seeds — suitable both for common use and for medications.  The Greek Herbal of Dioscorides: Illustrated by a Byzantine in A.D. 512. gives an illustration of an orange carrot, probably the first depiction and certainly well before other illustrations in the 16th century. (modern translation here)

The word is first recorded in English circa 1530 and was borrowed from Middle French carotte, itself from Latin carōta, from Greek καρωτόν or karōtón, originally from the Indo-European root *ker- (horn), due to its horn-like shape. In Old English, carrots (typically white at the time) were not clearly distinguished from parsnips: the two were collectively called moru or more (from Proto-Indo-European *mork- "edible root", cf. German Möhre or Russian морковь/morkov).

Various languages still use the same word for "carrot" as they do for "root"; e.g. Dutch wortel. Full explanation the etymology is recorded in a separate page in the Carrot Museum here.

Carrots were not cultivated in England, even in gardens, before rhe reign of Henry VIII; nor in the fields, about the time when Walter Blythe published his Improver Improved, in the year 1652. In the Six Weeks Tour of Arthur Young in 1779, through part of England, he takes notice of carrots in several instances, as being cultivated in fields, though not in the present more correct mode in use in this country, but still with such a produce as fully repaid with sufficient profit. (Source - 1829 in the book "Rural Recollections; Improvement in Agriculture and Rural Affairs" by Geo Robertson)

Domestication

The purple carrot existed in Central Asia for several centuries before it was brought west by the Arabs in about the 10th century.

Modern research has shown that there are two distinct groups of cultivated carrots from which the modern orange carrot derives, these are distinguished by their root colours and features of the leaves and flowers.

Eastern/Asiatic carrot (anthocyanin) - identified by its purple and/or yellow branched root, grey green leaves which are poorly dissected and an early flowering habit; they often have a habit to bolt easily. The greatest diversity of these carrots is found in Afghanistan, Russia, Iran and India. These are possible centers of domestication, which took place around the 10th century.

Eastern carrot was probably spread by Moorish invaders via Northern Africa to Spain in the 12th century. It is considered that the purple carrot was brought westward as far as the Arab countries from Afghanistan (where the purple carrots of antiquity are still grown).

Anthocyanin carrots are still under cultivation in Asia, but are being rapidly replaced by orange rooted Western carrots.

Western or carotene carrot - identified by its yellow, orange, white or red unbranched root and yellowish green leaves more clearly dissected and slightly hairy. It is likely these carrots derived from the Eastern group by selection among hybrid progenies of yellow Eastern carrots, white carrots and wild subspecies grown in the Mediterranean.  The first two originated by mutation.

It is thought that Western carrots may have originated later in Asia Minor, around Turkey and could have formed from a mutant which removed the anthocyanin (purple colour).

Carotene carrots are relatively recent, from the 15th and 16th centuries. Orange carrots were probably first cultivated in the Netherlands. Our present cultivars seem to originate from long orange varieties developed there. Adaptation to northern latitudes has been accompanied by change in photoperiod response. (The physiological reaction of organisms to the length of day or night).

The origin of the cultivated carrot is clearly acknowledged to be purple and in the Afghanistan region mainly because it was known to exist there well before reliable literature references or paintings gave evidence of Western carotene carrots. It is thought the carotene carrot was domesticated in the regions around Turkey. The precise date is not known but thought to be before the 8th century.

The purple carrot spread into the Mediterranean in the 10th century where it is thought a yellow mutant appeared. The purple and yellow carrots both gradually spread into Europe in subsequent centuries. It is considered that the white carrot is also a mutant of yellow varieties.

Orange carrots derived from yellow forms, and then from human selection and development, probably in the Netherlands. It is now proved through modern genetic study that humans made selections from a gene pool involving yellow rooted eastern carrots. In the late 1500s, agricultural scientists in the Netherlands bred selected deep yellow carrots together to make stable, large, straight, sweet, orange carrots like the ones we eat today, possibly because they thought the fad for sweet oranges would make people like other orange foods. But people still mostly fed carrots to horses and donkeys and pigs, and didn’t eat them themselves.

Some scholars think that orange carrots did not to appear until the 16th century, although there is a Byzantine manuscript of 512 ad, and an 11th century illuminated script, both of which depict an orange rooted carrot, and suggesting it was around long before (see photo above). (see here for more detailed history of orange carrot)

After the fall of Rome, gardens and vegetables are rarely mentioned again until 795 ad, when King Charlemagne included carrots in the list of plants recommended for cultivation in the Frankish empire covering western and central Europe.

It is known that purple or red and yellow carrots were cultivated in Iran and Arabia in the 10th century and in Syria in the 11th. By the 12th century carrots were reported in Spain, followed by Italy in the 13th, France, Germany and Holland by the 14th century.  English sightings occur in the 15th century.

Throughout the Medieval writings, carrots are confused with parsnips. When Linnaeus created scientific names, he called carrots Daucus carota and parsnips Pastinaca sativa, so the two are clearly different. Before Linnaeus, however, Pastinaca sativa was used for both plants.

Fuchs in 1542 described red and yellow garden carrots and wild carrots, but names them all Pastinaca (Meyer Trueblood and Heller 1999).

Gerard (1633) uses the English name carrot, but calls it Pastinaca in Latin: Pastinaca sativa var. tenuifolia, the yellow carrot and Pastinaca sativa atro-rubens, the red carrot. Gerard distinguishes parsnips from carrots and calling the parsnip Pastinaca latifolia sativa and P. latifolia sylvestris. Gerard notes the name similarity and is dissatisfied with it. He gives daucus as a name for carrot in Galen, but notes that many Roman writers called it pastinaca or other names.

The plants were not confused on purpose, but since we have in many cases, only the written word, if the Medieval writer referred to "pastinaca", it is impossible to know if they were carrots or parsnips. There was rarely any mention of colour or taste which would have helped the modern researcher to distinguish the two plant relatives.

Many 16th century herbalists made reference to the cultivation and use of carrot roots and seeds, including its efficacy against the bites of venomous beasts and a whole manner of stomach ailments. (Carrots in Herbals/Herbalists here  - Ancient Manuscripts page here)

The Spanish introduced the carrot on the island of Margarita, off the coast of Venezuela, in1565.

North America, particularly the parts that would become the Thirteen Colonies, got its carrots somewhat later, with the arrival of the first English settlers in Virginia in 1607.  When the English moved into Australia in 1788, carrots were with them there, as well. (History of carrots in the USA here.)

There is a theory that orange carrots were promoted by the Dutch, who bred them in honour of William of Orange, the leader of a 16th-century revolt against the Spanish Habsburg monarchy that ruled over a swathe of north-western Europe. Whatever the truth of that particular idea, the orange carrot did eventually become associated with the House of Orange. According to Simon Schama, the UK art historian, "the conspicuous display of orange carrots at market was at one time deemed to be a provocative gesture of support for an exiled descendent of William, by the movement that drove out the monarch during the 18th century. But this contempt for orange carrots failed to inspire a consumer revolution: almost all modern European carrots descend from a variety originally grown in the Dutch town of Hoorn".

The modern orange carrot was developed and stabilised by Dutch growers in the 16th century, evidenced from variety names and contemporary art works. (Art pages start here). A tale, probably apocryphal, has it that the orange carrot was bred in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century to honour William of Orange. Though the orange carrot does appear to date from the Netherlands in the sixteenth century, it is unlikely that honouring William of Orange had anything to do with it!   Some astute historian managed to install the myth that the arboriculturist's work on an unexpected mutation was developed especially to give thanks to King William I as a tribute to him leading the Dutch revolt against the Spanish to gain independence from Spain. There is no documentary evidence for this story!

The purple carrots being consumed at the same time, not only stained cookware and appeared quite unsightly, they did not taste as good as orange carrots, and so the orange rooted varieties came to dominate the culinary world.

Whatever the origins, the Long Orange Dutch cultivar, is commonly held to be the progenitor of the orange Horn carrot varieties (Early Scarlet Horn, Early Half Long, Late Half Long). All modern, western carotene varieties ultimately descend from these varieties. The Horn Carrot derives from the Netherlands town of Hoorn in the neighbourhood of which it was probably developed. Horenshce Wortelen (carrots of Hoorn) were common on the Amsterdam market in 1610.  The earliest English seedsmen list Early Horn and Long Orange.

In 1753 Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist, published the "Species Plantarum," and established the foundations of the modern scheme for the naming of living organisms, called binomial nomenclature, that became universally accepted in the scientific world, including Daucus Carota.  

We have the French to thank for popular modern varieties such as Nantes and Chantenay, with credit to the 19th century horticulturist Louis de Vilmorin, who laid the foundations for modern plant breeding.   Here are some images of the carrots varieties which Vilmorin described in "The Vegetable Garden" in 1856 :
 

Early Half Long	Dutch Horn	English Horn	Half Long Danvers

Dutch Origin - In the late 1500s, agricultural scientists in the Netherlands bred selected deep yellow carrots together to make stable, large, straight, sweet, orange carrots like the ones we eat today, possibly because they thought the fad for sweet oranges would make people like other orange foods. But people still mostly fed carrots to horses and donkeys and pigs, and didn’t eat them themselves.

The orange cultivars "Horn horn" and "Long Orange" originated in the Netherlands during the seventeenth century. (Banga and Simon) and form the basis of many modern orange varieties - see diagram below.  Oddly white roots began to appear in paintings about the same time, perhaps implying that there had been little attempt by western Europeans to domesticate the wild, white rooted carrot until Moorish invaders came along with their coloured roots. 

The cheap and accessible orange root was constantly popular as a staple food throughout Victorian times and became even more so during the two World Wars when other food sources became scarce. (World War Two page here)

Research and development continues to take place to produce disease resistant varieties, together with research into other uses for the root such a bio fuel and its use in construction as an alternative to fibre glass and carbon fibre.

The current yellow/orange varieties (containing carotene) through gradual selection in Europe, now form the basis of the commercial cultivars around the world, mainly through their superior taste, versatility, nutritional value and cultural acceptance.

There is a lot more detail of the history of carrots through the ages, and the next pages in the Carrot Museum go on to give the full history from pre-historic seeds through to how the Greeks and Romans used carrots, first in medicine and then food.  

There is a more detailed analysis of the available evidence surrounding its origins, cultivation and domestication, and journey across Europe, also exploring the emergence of the ubiquitous orange carrot, here.   The main colours of carrots (other than orange) now have their own pages  -  purple - black - white - yellow - red

Follow its steps through the dark ages and then enlightenment with 17th century herbalists who recommended carrots and their seeds for a wide variety of ailments.   Finally after many years as a low class vegetable, mainly used for animal fodder,  it came of age during the food scarcity of the two World Wars when people were forced to be more inventive with fewer resources.(WW2 page here)

It is a long and fascinating story. 

There is a more comprehensive study and analysis of the various  theories of the domestication of carrots and the arrival of the orange carrot on the page dedicated to the subject - the Colour Orange - here.

Main reference material is here

Wikipedia references here

The Library of Rural and Agricultural Literature - great historical resource (you need to register to view documents)