The Legumes: The Earliest Domesticated Plants in the Near East?

Abstract

The Near East was a major nuclear area in which agriculture was adopted as a survival strategy about io,ooo years ago. Archaeological and palaeobotanical studies over the last three decades have been aimed at testing the various models proposed to explain the emergence of farming societies. In particular, research has concentrated on clarifying the origins, genetic changes, anrd methods of planting and harvesting of cereals. This focus is not surprising, as wheat and barley breads have been staples throughout the region's recorded history. Pulses, although recognized as important, have received much less attention (but see Renfrew 1973, Zohary and Hopf 1973, Ladizinsky and Adler 1976, and Ladizinsky 1979). The widespread use of legumes throughout the Mediterranean basin at the dawn of agriculture is inferred from the distribution of their wild ancestors and the variety of regions in which they have been transformed into domesticated plants: pea (Pisum sativum) and horsebean (Vicia faba) in the Levant (Ben-Zeev and Zohary 1973, Kislev i985), lentil (Lens culinaris) and chickpea (Cicer arietinum) in Anatolia (Ladizinsky 1979, Ladizinsky and Adler 1976), chickling vetch (Lathyrus sativus) in the Balkan Peninsula, flat-podded vetchling (L. cicera) in southwestern Europe (Kislev n.d.), and such so-called less important legumes as V. narbonensis in the Near East (Scheibe 1934) and Lens nigricans in southern Europe (Ladizinsky and Braun i983). Because of their superior nutritional value, early ripening, and wide environmental distribution, pulses may perhaps have been cultivated earlier than cereals in the Near East and served as a model for the raising of additional crops. Current views on the history of plant domestication rely on the scanty archaeobotanical evidence and the historical evolution of agricultural economies. On the basis of radiometric dates, most authorities agree that the domestication of cereals and pulses occurred during the 8th and 7th millennia b.c. (Renfrew i969, Zohary and Hopf 1973, van Zeist 1976, Hopf i983). Whereas wild and domesticated wheat and barley are readily distinguished morphologically this is not the case for pulses. Therefore, when the latter are uncovered in archaeological deposits, it is difficult to determine whether they were cultivated or gathered. It is generally assumed that wild pulses and wild cereals, along with various other seeds, nuts, tubers, herbs, etc., formed the vegetal diet of Epi-Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers in the Levant, but because of the absence of plant remains in most sites of this period this assumption has not been verified.2 Ethnographic data indicate that prehistoric Mediterranean people, like other mid-latitude human groups, were predominantly gatherers of vegetal foodstuffs (Gaulin and Konner 1977). We suggest that these hunter-gatherers' intimate knowledge of the vegetation enabled them, in a later period, to enter into new relationships involving the propagation and cultivation of selected species. The presence of grinding stones in the Levantine Upper Palaeolithic and pounding tools (mortars and pestles) in Epi-Palaeolithic sites (Bar-Yosef i980, I98I) testifies to the possible use of wild seeds as part of the vegetal diet. This contention is supported by measurements of Sr/Ca ratios in skeletal remains from sites of these periods (Sillen I984). Such preadaptations were necessary for the evolution of subsistence strategies into the manipulation of the reproduction and growth of some plants that heralded what we generally call the Agricultural Revolution. Among the annuals of the eastern Mediterranean, it is the cereals and the pulses that produce the best edible seeds for humans. Other species, such as Chenopodium album, also yield seeds in the late spring and early summer, but these are often smaller and more difficult to process into food (Helbaek I960). Cereals and pulses differ in various respects, and these differences may have been crucial for the decision making of prehistoric gatherers. Cereals grow in large natural stands that cover hundreds of hectares in the oak-pistachio belt of the Near East (Harlan and Zohary I963). Pulses are basically dispersed within the same Mediterranean shrubland but in smaller patches. Cereals ripen and can be harvested from early May until the end of June, depending on topography and location. Pulses ripen in March-April, generally a month before the cereals (Gophna and Kislev 1979, Plitmann and Kislev n.d.). Within the same patch not all the pods ripen at the same time, a trait enabling a second harvesting if the plants are not uprooted. The collection of wild cereals has few requirements. Hand picking and a basket are sufficient. Plucking the