Founder crops

Template:Short description Template:Multiple image The founder crops or primary domesticates are a group of flowering plants that were domesticated by early farming communities in Southwest Asia and went on to form the basis of agricultural economies across Eurasia. As originally defined by Daniel Zohary and Maria Hopf, they consisted of three cereals (emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley), four pulses (lentil, pea, chickpea, and bitter vetch), and flax. Subsequent research has indicated that many other species could be considered founder crops. These species were amongst the first domesticated plants in the world.

DefinitionEdit

In 1988, the Israeli botanist Daniel Zohary and the German botanist Maria Hopf formulated their founder crops hypothesis. They proposed that eight plant species were domesticated by early Neolithic farming communities in Southwest Asia (Fertile Crescent) and went on to form the basis of agricultural economies across much of Eurasia, including Southwest Asia, South Asia, Europe, and North Africa, in a single process.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The founder crops consisted of three cereals (emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley), four pulses (lentil, pea, chickpea, and bitter vetch), and flax. They were amongst the first domesticated plants in the world.Template:Sfn These founder crops were domesticated in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period,Template:Sfn between 10,500 and 7,500 years ago.Template:Sfn

Different species formed the basis of early agricultural economies in other centres of domestication. For example, rice was first cultivated in the Yangtze River basin of East Asia in the early Neolithic.<ref name="Normile">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>"New Archaeobotanic Data for the Study of the Origins of Agriculture in China", Zhijun Zhao, Current Anthropology Vol. 52, No. S4, (October 2011), pp. S295-S306</ref> Sorghum was widely cultivated in sub-Saharan Africa during the early Neolithic,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> while peanuts,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> squash,<ref name="smith2006">Template:Cite journal</ref> and cassava<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> were domesticated in the Americas.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

DomesticationEdit

All of the so-called founder crops are native to Southwest Asia and were domesticated in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Many other crops were domesticated in West Asia during the Neolithic, as well as elsewhere, independently, in later periods.<ref name="Purugganan Fuller 2009">Template:Cite journal</ref>

CerealsEdit

The staple crops of Neolithic agriculture were cereals, which could be easily cultivated in open fields, have a high nutritional value, and can be stored for long periods of time. The most important were two species of wheat, namely emmer (Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccum) and einkorn (Triticum monococcum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare), which were amongst the first species to be domesticated in the world. The wild progenitors of all three crops are self-pollinating, which made them easier to domesticate.Template:Sfn

Wild einkorn wheat (Triticum monococcum subsp. boeoticum) grows across Southwest Asia in open parkland and steppe environments.Template:Sfn It comprises three distinct races, only one of which, native to Southeast Anatolia, was domesticated.Template:Sfn The main feature that distinguishes domestic einkorn from wild is that its ears will not shatter without pressure, making it dependent on humans for dispersal and reproduction.Template:Sfn It also tends to have wider grains.Template:Sfn Wild einkorn was collected at Epipalaeolithic sites such as Tell Abu Hureyra (Template:Circa) and Mureybet (Template:Circa), but the earliest archaeological evidence for the domestic form comes from the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of southern Turkey, at Çayönü, Cafer Höyük, and possibly Nevalı Çori.Template:Sfn Genetic evidence indicates that it was domesticated in multiple places independently.Template:Sfn

Wild emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccoides) is less widespread than einkorn, favouring the rocky basaltic and limestone soils found in the hilly flanks of the Fertile Crescent.Template:Sfn It is also more diverse, with domesticated varieties falling into two major groups: hulled or non-shattering, in which threshing separates the whole spikelet; and free-threshing, where the individual grains are separated. Both varieties probably existed in the Neolithic, but over time free-threshing cultivars became more common.Template:Sfn Genetic studies have found that, like einkorn, emmer was domesticated in southeastern Anatolia, but only once.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The earliest secure archaeological evidence for domestic emmer comes from the early PPNB levels at Çayönü, Template:Circa, where distinctive scars on the spikelets indicated that they came from a hulled domestic variety.Template:Sfn Slightly earlier finds have been reported from Tell Aswad in Syria, Template:Circa, but these were identified using a less reliable method based on grain size.Template:Sfn

Wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum) is more widely distributed than either wheat species, growing across the Eastern Mediterranean, Southwest Asia, and as far east as Tibet, but is most common in the Fertile Crescent.Template:Sfn Its tolerance for dry conditions and poor soils allows it to thrive in arid steppe and desert environments.Template:Sfn Wild barley has two rows of spikelets, hulled grains, and a brittle rachis; domestication produced, successively, non-brittle, naked (hulless), and then six-rowed forms.Template:Sfn Genetic evidence indicates that it was first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent, probably in the Levant, though there may have been independent domestication events elsewhere.Template:Sfn Wild barley was harvested in Southwest Asia as long as 50,000 years ago at Kebara Cave, and 23,000 years ago at Ohalo II.Template:Sfn At Gilgal I, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site in Israel dated to Template:Circa, archaeologists discovered a large granary containing thousands of wild barley grains, providing direct evidence for the cultivation of a cereal before it was domesticated.Template:Sfn The earliest known remains of domesticated two-row barley come from Tell Aswad and are Template:Circa.Template:Sfn Six-rowed barley is first seen at Çatalhöyük, Template:Circa, and naked varieties at Hacilar, Template:Circa.Template:Sfn

PulsesEdit

Lentil (Lens culinaris)
Pea (Pisum sativum)
Chickpea (Cicer arietinum)
Bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia)

FlaxEdit

Flax (Linum usitatissimum) was the first species to be domesticated for oil and fibres rather than food.Template:Sfn Its wild progenitor was Linum bienne, which can be found from western Europe to the Caucasus.Template:Sfn Wild flax fibres were used by humans as early as 30,000 years ago, at Dzudzuana cave in Georgia,Template:Sfn but genetic evidence indicates that domestic flax was initially selected for its oil.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn In Southwest Asia, the oldest known wild linseed comes from Tell Mureibit and is Template:Circa; thereafter, it is commonly found at Pre-Pottery Neolithic B sites across the region.Template:Sfn These remains are thought to represent the collection of seeds for pressing or consumption, since flax fibres are usually harvested before the seeds mature.Template:Sfn Domestic flax is distinguished by its non-splitting capsules, larger seeds, higher oil yield, and longer fibres compared to wild varieties.Template:Sfn It does not appear in the archaeological record until relatively late, at Tell es-Sultan (Jericho), Template:Circa.Template:Sfn

Cultivation and spreadEdit

Epipalaeolithic hunter-gatherers harvested the wild ancestors of the "founder crops" for millennia before they were domesticated, perhaps as early as 23,000 years ago, but they formed a minor component of their diets.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Even after they were brought under cultivation, the founder crops were not favoured over wild plants, and they were not established as staple foods until the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, Template:Circa.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn This phase of "pre-domestication cultivation" lasted at least a thousand years, during which early cultivars were spread around the region and slowly developed the traits that would come to characterise their domesticated forms.Template:Sfn

Other cropsEdit

The founder crops were not the only species domesticated in southwest Asia, nor were they necessarily the most important in the Neolithic period.Template:Sfn Domesticated rye (Secale cereale) occurs in the final Epipalaeolithic strata at Tell Abu Hureyra (the earliest instance of domesticated plant species),<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> but was not common until the spread of farming into northern Europe several millennia later.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Other plants cultivated in the Neolithic include sweet almond<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and figs.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

As of 2018, many scholars disagreed with the "founder notion".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2012, scholars suggested that there were likely more than just 8 "founder crops", including 16 or 17 different species of cereals and legumes and figs. Larger DNA data sets and better analytical techniques suggest a more complex picture.<ref name="fuller">Template:Cite journal</ref> In 2000, a "new" glume wheat (NGW), a type of cultivated wheat which existed across western Asia and Europe was found in archeological sites of Hungary, then Turkey<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and in 2023 in Bavaria, Germany.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>