Yahoo! News · <A HREF="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/74/">Breaking News</A> Updated 24 hours a day · <A HREF="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/79/">Entertainment</A> Music, TV & film · <A HREF="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/80/">Tech</A> Latest IT news [Unable to display image]> Full Coverage · <A HREF="http://uk.yahoo.com/news_to_fc/?http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/c/conservatives.html">Major backs Clarke in bitter Tory battle</A> · <A HREF="http://uk.yahoo.com/news_to_fc/?http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/m/malaysia.html">British schoolgirl's body taken from Borneo peak</A> · <A HREF="http://uk.yahoo.com/news_to_fc/?http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/c/crime.html">Murder hunt after Leanne's body found</A> · <A HREF="http://uk.yahoo.com/news_to_fc/?http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/k/kosovo.html">Troops given go-ahead for Macedonia mission</A> · <A HREF="http://uk.yahoo.com/news_to_fc/?http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/h/hamiltons.html">Hamilton case</A> · <A HREF="http://uk.yahoo.com/news_to_fc/?http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/r/royalwatch.html">Diana's life turned into musical</A> <A HREF="http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/">All Full Coverage</A> Banana fossils unlock Africa fruit history-experts LONDON (Reuters) - Bananas were grown in West Africa 2,500 years ago, at least a millennium before historians thought the fruit was first farmed there, new research shows.A team led by Hans Beeckman of Belgium's Royal Museum for Central Africa discovered microscopic banana fossils in Cameroon, the New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday.They were dated back to around 500 BC.The researchers ruled out indigenous strains of the fruit and concluded people must have brought plants from Asia, where they originated, and cultivated the fruit."They probably came from Indonesia and Asia by sea to Madagascar, then through eastern Africa and finally to Cameroon," Beeckman told the magazine.Experts were mystified at the findings. Nicholas David, professor of archaeology at the University of Calgary in Canada, said he thought the yellow fruit had not even reached East Africa until the 10th century.
