Editing Founder crops (section)

==Definition==

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 [[Domestication|domesticated]] by early [[Neolithic]] farming communities in [[Southwest Asia]] ([[Fertile Crescent]]) and went on to form the basis of [[agriculture|agricultural]] economies across much of [[Eurasia]], including Southwest Asia, [[South Asia]], [[Europe]], and [[North Africa]], in a single process.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Zohary |first1=Daniel |author1-link=Daniel Zohary |last2=Hopf |first2=Maria |author2-link=Maria Hopf |title=Domestication of plants in the old world |publisher=Clarendon |year=1988}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Harris |first=David R. |title=The Origin and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia |location=London |publisher=University College London Press |year=1996 |pages=142–158 |isbn=978-1-8572-8537-6}}</ref> The founder crops consisted of three [[cereal]]s ([[Emmer|emmer wheat]], [[einkorn wheat]], and [[barley]]), four [[Pulse (legume)|pulses]] ([[lentil]], [[pea]], [[chickpea]], and [[Vicia ervilia|bitter vetch]]), and [[flax]]. They were amongst the first domesticated plants in the world.{{sfn|Zohary|Hopf|Weiss|2012|p=139}} These founder crops were domesticated in the [[Pre-Pottery Neolithic]] period,{{sfn|Zohary|Hopf|Weiss|2012|loc="Current state of the art"}} between 10,500 and 7,500 years ago.{{sfn|Banning|2002}}

Different species formed the basis of early agricultural economies in other [[Vavilov center|centres of domestication]]. For example, rice was first cultivated in the [[Yangtze River]] basin of East Asia in the early Neolithic.<ref name="Normile">{{cite journal |last=Normile |first=Dennis |year=1997 |title=Yangtze seen as earliest rice site |journal=Science |volume=275 |issue=5298 |pages=309–310 |doi=10.1126/science.275.5298.309 |s2cid=140691699}}</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>{{Cite book |last=Carney |first=Judith |title=In the Shadow of Slavery |publisher=University of California Press |year=2009 |isbn=9780520269965 |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles, California |pages=16}}</ref> while peanuts,<ref>{{cite web |last=Dillehay |first=Tom D. |title=Earliest-known evidence of peanut, cotton and squash farming found |url=http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-06/vu-eeo062507.php |access-date=June 29, 2007 |archive-date=September 11, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070911192923/http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-06/vu-eeo062507.php |url-status=live }}</ref> squash,<ref name="smith2006">{{cite journal |last=Smith |first=Bruce D. |date=15 August 2006 |title=Eastern North America as an Independent Center of Plant Domestication |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=103 |issue=33 |pages=12223–12228 |bibcode=2006PNAS..10312223S |doi=10.1073/pnas.0604335103 |pmc=1567861 |pmid=16894156 |doi-access=free}}</ref> and [[cassava]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Olsen |first1=Kenneth M. |last2=Schaal |first2=Barbara A. |title=Evidence on the origin of cassava: Phylogeography of Manihot esculenta |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=96 |issue=10 |date=1999-05-11 |issn=0027-8424 |doi=10.1073/pnas.96.10.5586 |pages=5586–5591 |pmid=10318928 |pmc=21904 |doi-access=free |bibcode=1999PNAS...96.5586O }}</ref> were domesticated in the Americas.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Wilford |first1=John Noble |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/science/28cnd-squash.html |title=Scientists Find Earliest Sign of Cultivated Crops in Americas |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=28 June 2007 |access-date=24 June 2020 |archive-date=24 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124052546/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/science/28cnd-squash.html |url-status=live }}</ref>