Why Did Our Ancestors Choose To Grow Wheat And Barley But Not Many Other Similar Plants

Why do we grow wheat and barley instead of the dozens of other wild grasses our ancestors ate 10,000 years ago? The reasons our ancestors in the Middle East then chose to grow wheat and barley but not other grasses could hold the key to food security in the future, researchers say.

 

New Insights Into The Origins Of Agriculture Could Help Shape The Future Of Food
University of Sheffield

• Expanding population is putting increasing demands on food production
• Study could lead to new crops becoming our staple foods in the future

Agricultural decisions made by our ancestors more than 10,000 years ago could hold the key to food security in the future, according to new research by the University of Sheffield.

Scientists, looking at why the first arable farmers chose to domesticate some cereal crops and not others, studied those that originated in the Fertile Crescent, an arc of land in western Asia from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf.

They grew wild versions of what are now staple foods like wheat and barley along with other grasses from the region to identify the traits that make some plants suitable for agriculture, including how much edible seed the grasses produced and their architecture.

Dr Catherine Preece, who worked on the study with colleagues from the University’s Department of Animal and Plant Sciences and Department of Archaeology, said: “Our results surprised us because numerous other grasses that our ancestors ate, but we do not, can produce just as much seed as wild wheat and barley. It is only when these plants are grown at high densities, similar to what we would find in fields, that the advantage of wild wheat and barley is revealed.”

The study identified two key characteristics shared by the wild relatives of current crop plants. Firstly they have bigger seeds, which means they grow into bigger seedlings and are able to get more than their fair share of light and nutrients, and secondly, as adult plants they are less bushy than other grasses and package their big seeds onto fewer stems. This means crop wild relatives perform better than the other wild grasses that they are competing with and are better at growing close together in fields, making them ideal for using in agriculture.

“The results are important because our expanding human population is putting increasing demands on food production,” said Dr Preece.

“Before humans learnt how to farm, our ancestors ate a much wider variety of grasses. If we can understand what traits have made some grasses into good crops then we can look for those characteristics in other plants and perhaps identify good candidates for future domestication.”

She added: “To shape the future we must understand the past, so the more we can discover about the origins of agriculture, the more information we will have to help us tackle the challenges that face modern day food production.”

So far the researchers have been conducting their experiments in greenhouses and their results indicate that the traits affecting how plants compete with each other are crucial factors to determining the success of a crop.

The team now plan to observe how the plants interact in their natural environment by growing them in experimental fields in Turkey, the heart of the Fertile Crescent. They hope that their experiments will yield another crop of important results.

“Cereal breeders are taking an increasing interest in modern crops' wild relatives as a source of useful traits that may help to increase yields or increase resilience to climate change, and our work should help in this process,” said Dr Preece.

Dr Preece presented the results of this study to the joint British Ecological Society and the French Ecological Society today (Thursday 11 December 2014) in the Grand Palais, Lille.

Comments

[Yoel B]

Probably the gluten exorphins (addictive opiod peptides which are result from partial digestion of glute and IIRC gliaden.)

Gluten seems to affect zonulin in everybody to some extent and to a very great extent in some people. We seem to have rewarded the plants by extensively culivatng them, deforesting large areas and plowing under potentially competing grasses....

[Rocky]

William Davis MD, a cardiologist, recommends that people stay away from grass based foods (wheat, rye, barley, corn and rice) even if they don't have celiac disease. His latest book, "Wheat Belly Total Health" is available at some public libraries or you can buy it online. Read comments about the book and his recommendations here: http://www.amazon.com/Wheat-Belly-Total-Health-Weight-Loss/dp/1623364086/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418522245&sr=1-1&keywords=wheat+belly+total+health+by+dr.+william+davis&pebp=1418522267796

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

BEER. Simple.

[Not afraid of the Truth]

Not true. Wheat was a fully formed grain in the Garden of Eden, 5775 years ago. We have a midrash which tells us that wheat may have even been the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. It makes sense, because when Adam was ejected from Eden, he had to till the land for himself, so he probably went for something he had already tasted, and that is how wheat became so popular for mankind.
You don't need science. Everything is there in the Torah.

[Wirbelwind]

A sedentary man neeeds 1500 calories per day. A normal working man needs 2500. A strenuously working man 3,500.

If Homo Sapiens has been around for 500,000 years, exactly what did the paleolithic diet consist of for 490,000 years to provide those kind of calories, if he had no domesticated animals, no milk, no butter, no cheese, no wheat, no bread, no sugar, no corn, no soya, no rice, no chickens, no eggs, no sheep, no cows etc etc, until agriculture and civilization c10,000 years ago?

[Allan]

@Wirbelwind. what did the paleolithic diet consist of for 490,000 years to provide those kind of calories

Well, they were hunter - gatherers. That’s what all those stone spear tips were for - as well as stone cutting tools for stripping the meat off the bone and even cracking the bones to extract the marrow. There are plenty of calories and nutrition in the animals our ancestors hunted but it was a dangerous way to make a living.

This diet could be supplemented with foraged fruits and vegetables as well as fishing.

There are famous cave paintings in Europe (such as at Lascaux France) where our Paleolithic ancestors actually painted many of the animals they hunted - some of which were huge species that are extinct today.

[Jeff]

>Posted by: Not afraid of the Truth | December 13, 2014 at 11:25 PM

It's becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between humor and genuine ignorance.

If this is legitimate, it illustrates what I always say: fundamentalists have no sense of irony.

[Mb]

The countries that grew wheat and domesticated animals those countries moved forward, countries in Africa that weren't too particular good in either one of these traits ended up were they are today - - - what was key in survival and growth

[surprised]

Mb says a valid point. The book Gun, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond studies the effects of food production in human development. There's a documentary about this book.

[Sarek]

Not afraid is right. People did not "learn" how to grow crops because they were already there in Eden.

Not sure how the crops left Eden, though. Does the commentary say how Adam & Eve knew enough to take seeds with them, learned how to till the soil, how to mill, how to bake, etc.? Genesis says they only ate from trees. Hell, how did they learn to make fire for that matter?

/end sarcasm

[Wirbelwind]

Of all the mammals, naked humans are the most fragile have the most chesronos: no survival ability at birth, 1 year of constant breast feeding, 10 years of constant adult supervision and teaching, clothing, leather shod feet, cooked food, pillow, blanket, toothbrush, earbuds, bathing etc etc.

If Homo Sapiens with our intelligence was sparking up fires all over the savannah already 500,000 years ago, why did the advent of civilization, manufacture, metalwork, the wheel, domesticated animals and agriculture take so very very long i.e. 490,000 years?

[Allan]

Sarek -@Hell, how did they learn to make fire for that matter?

Clearly you have yet to complete your studies in Torah anthropology!

The story of fire - as I have heard it from Chabadniks is - When the sun set at the end of the very first Shabbat, Adam Harishon was terrified of the darkness. He thought that because of his sin the world might stay dark forever and didn’t realize that the sun would rise again in a few hours.

Meanwhile, God taught Adam how to get some light at night by lighting a fire - by striking two flints together to make a spark. This event, which happened on the first motzei Shabbat, is commemorated by the fire which we light at the Havdala service as soon as Shabbat ends.

Not sure when Adam had time for a crash course in wheat agriculture. Maybe he figured it our for himself since the midrashim make him out to be some kind of genius who knew all about nature and could even communicate to the animals (although he wasn’t quite bright enough to tell Eve “no thank you” when she handed him the apple.)

[Jeff]

"Does the commentary say how Adam & Eve knew enough to take seeds with them, learned how to till the soil, how to mill, how to bake, etc.? Genesis says they only ate from trees. Hell, how did they learn to make fire for that matter?"

Presumably, after his initial outburst of rage, God calmed down long enough to teach them how to do all of these things - or there's probably a Midrash saying he sent angels to do it. After all, everything is in the Torah - pardon me, "Toyreh".

[Rocky]

Jeff: The fundamentalists probably have a sense of irony, but they express it in Yiddish. When I listen to them on videos, they sound like greenhorns (and I am not talking about farmers) even though they were born in the US.

[Jeff]

Perhaps, but I don't think a guy who posts the comment, "You don't need science. Everything is there in the Torah", then signs himself "Not Afraid of the Truth" has a sense of irony.

[David]

Wheat could not be widely cultivated until either a mutation or deliberate selection allowed for the development of strains with a tough rachis which ensured that the wheat spikelet which contains the grain would remain attached during harvest rather than fall to the ground. It is thought thay such wheat strains may have been developed by the builders of Gobekli Tepe: http://youtu.be/eHG9URGDt6s which predates the pyramids by thousands of years.

[surprised]

Wirbelwind,
you answer your own question. just revert the order of the paragraphs you wrote.

only when humans stopped hunting/gathering and started to build houses, is that their number started to increase.

read or take a look at the guns, germs and steel documentary. it gives a nice introduction to this theme and is available on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36BQW1SuHQ8

[Allan]

@Wirbelwind. -December 14, 2014 at 12:01 PM

“If Homo Sapiens with our intelligence was sparking up fires all over the savannah already 500,000 years ago, why did the advent of civilization, manufacture, metalwork, the wheel, domesticated animals and agriculture take so very very long i.e. 490,000 years?”

Wirbel - Why not submit such questions to Google or Wikipedia or any of dozens of specialized Human Evolution websites? Most of us here are interested amateurs, not experts in the field. There must be hundreds of books and academic papers on dealing with every aspect of the question by the most respected authorities.

Why not see what they have to say and decide whether their answers satisfy you or if you think that they’re all wrong and the Torah’s Creation story makes more sense.