The Domestication of Crop Plants

Abstract

Food production economies based on domesticated plants and livestock is a relatively recent phenomenon in the human career. Packages of nutritionally and agronomically balanced crop plants evolved independently in several world regions including sub-Saharan Africa, Meso-America, North-east America, East Asia, and the Near East. The longest research tradition on the origins of agriculture concerning the Near East on which we elaborate. Geobotanical and ecological evidence on the wild progenitors in conjunction with archaeological and archaeobotanical data of the Near Eastern crop package species enable the reconstruction of this major event in the prehistory of humankind. The accumulated evidence from the Near East suggests a geographically focused/centered, and knowledge-based domestication of a suite of cereals and grain legume crops. Genetic and agronomic considerations enable to draw a distinction between the crucial traits underlying the domestication episode and traits that were selected for by farmers during the millennia following (under) domestication. This distinction is valuable for both reconstructing prehistoric events and for future crop improvement.