Millets are a group of cereal crops or grains grown around the world for fodder and human food.
Millets are small seeded grains from the grass family and belong to the order Poales and family of Gramineae (Dendy 1995). They cover ten generas and at least 14 species.
Major millets are the most widely cultivated species.
Eragrostideae tribe :
Finger millet (also known as Ragi, nachani,Mandua or Kezhvaragu in Tamil in India) - the fourth-most cultivated millet.
Paniceae tribe :
Proso millet (syn. : Common millet, Broom corn millet, Hog millet or White millet, "Chena" or Chin in Hindi, "Pani-varagu" in Tamil, "Baragu" in Kannada) - the third-most cultivated millet.
Setaria italica: Foxtail millet - the second-most cultivated millet (also known as Korralu in Andhra Pradesh and "Thinai" in Tamil Nadu and Kang or Rala in Maharashtra, Kakum in Hindi).
Andropogoneae tribe :Sorghum bicolor: usually not considered being a millet, but sometimes known as Great Millet, as well as Jonna in Andhra Pradesh, Jolla in Kannada, Vellai cholam in Tamil Nadu and Jowar in Hindi.
Foxtail Millet -first domesticated millet.
Pearl Millet was domesticated in the Sahel region of West Africa, in 2500 BC.
Asian varieties of millet made their way from China to the Black Sea region of Europe by 5000 BC.
Archeologists 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.
A 4,000-year-old well-preserved bowl containing well-preserved noodles made from foxtail millet and broomcorn millet was found at the Lajia archaeological site in China.
Finger Millet is originally native to the highlands of East Africa, and was domesticated before the third millennium BC. It's cultivation spread to South India by 1800 BC.
Yajurveda- mention of foxtail millet (priyangava), Barnyard millet (aanava) and black finger millet (shyaamaka), indicating that millet consumption was very common, pre-dating to 4500 BC, during the Indian Bronze Age.