Abstract
Weeds are currently present in a wide range of ecosystems worldwide. Although the beginning of their evolution is largely unknown, researchers assumed that they developed in tandem with cultivation since the appearance of agricultural habitats some 12,000 years ago. These rapidly-evolving plants invaded the human disturbed areas and thrived in the new habitat. Here we present unprecedented new findings of the presence of “proto-weeds” and small-scale trial cultivation in Ohalo II, a 23,000-year-old hunter-gatherers' sedentary camp on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel. We examined the plant remains retrieved from the site (ca. 150,000 specimens), placing particular emphasis on the search for evidence of plant cultivation by Ohalo II people and the presence of weed species. The archaeobotanically-rich plant assemblage demonstrates extensive human gathering of over 140 plant species and food preparation by grinding wild wheat and barley. Among these, we identified 13 well-known current weeds mixed with numerous seeds of wild emmer, barley, and oat. This collection provides the earliest evidence of a human-disturbed environment—at least 11 millennia before the onset of agriculture—that provided the conditions for the development of "proto-weeds", a prerequisite for weed evolution. Finally, we suggest that their presence indicates the earliest, small-scale attempt to cultivate wild cereals seen in the archaeological record.
Highlights
The search for concrete evidence for the first appearance of weeds some 12,000 years ago, when intentional systematic cultivation was initiated in the Levant, needs to rely on the prehistoric archaeobotanical plant assemblages [1,2,3]
More than one-third of this rich plant assemblage of seeds and fruits belongs to the grass family (Poaceae), including wild emmer wheat, wild barley, and wild oat (Triticum dicoccoides, Hordeum spontaneum, Avena barbata/sterilis)
Unequivocal evidence that these grains were processed for consumption is provided by (i) a grinding slab set on the floor of Brush Hut 1 from which wild cereal starch granules were extracted, and (ii) by the patterned distribution of these species’ seeds found around the grinding slab [23,24,44]
Summary
The search for concrete evidence for the first appearance of weeds some 12,000 years ago, when intentional systematic cultivation was initiated in the Levant, needs to rely on the prehistoric archaeobotanical plant assemblages [1,2,3]. The archaeological record demonstrates that pre-Neolithic human societies were hunter-gatherers for millennia when a radical development took place throughout Eurasia at the onset of the Holocene, 11,700/500 cal BP. Origin of Cultivation and Proto-Weeds, Long Before Neolithic Farming well as herding, tending goats, sheep, pigs, and cattle [2,4]. The development of the initial agricultural system saw the ‘Domestication Syndrome’ of both plants and animals. The establishment of long-term, agricultural-based permanent villages resulted in a population increase which later caused human expansions westward and eastward [5]
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