The founder crops or primary domesticates are a group of flowering plants that were domesticated by early farming communities in Southwest Asia and went on to form the basis of agricultural economies across Eurasia. As originally defined by Daniel Zohary and Maria Hopf, they consisted of three cereals (emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley), four pulses (lentil, pea, chickpea, and bitter vetch), and flax. Subsequent research has indicated that many other species could be considered founder crops. These species were amongst the first domesticated plants in the world.
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👉 Neolithic founder crops in the context of Emmer
Emmer is a hybrid species of wheat. Along with einkorn, it was one of the first crops domesticated in the Near East. It was widely cultivated in the ancient world, but is now a relict crop in mountainous regions of Europe and Asia. Emmer is one of the three grains called farro in Italy.
The edible seeds have been used as food since ancient times. The domesticated types are Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccum and T. t. conv. durum. The wild plant is called T. t. subsp. dicoccoides. The seeds have an awned covering, the sharp spikes helping the seeds to become buried in the ground. The principal difference between the wild and the domestic forms is that the ripened seed head of the wild plant shatters and scatters the seed onto the ground, while in the domesticated emmer, the seed head remains intact, thus making it easier to harvest the grain.
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Neolithic founder crops in the context of History of agriculture
Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least eleven separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin.The development of agriculture about 12,000 years ago changed the way humans lived. They switched from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to permanent settlements and farming.
Wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 104,000 years ago. However, domestication did not occur until much later. The earliest evidence of small-scale cultivation of edible grasses is from around 21,000 BC with the Ohalo II people on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. By around 9500 BC, the eight Neolithic founder crops – emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chickpeas, and flax – were cultivated in the Levant. Rye may have been cultivated earlier, but this claim remains controversial. Regardless, rye's spread from Southwest Asia to the Atlantic was independent of the Neolithic founder crop package. Rice was domesticated in China by 6200 BC with earliest known cultivation from 5700 BC, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Rice was also independently domesticated in West Africa and cultivated by 1000 BC. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 11,000 years ago, followed by sheep. Cattle were domesticated from the wild aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey and India around 8500 BC. Camels were domesticated late, perhaps around 3000 BC.
Neolithic founder crops in the context of Vicia ervilia
Vicia ervilia, called ervil or bitter vetch, is an ancient legume crop of the Mediterranean region. Besides the English names, other common names include: gavdaneh (Persian), kersannah (Arabic), yero (Spanish), rovi (Greek), and burçak (Turkish).The nutritional value of the grain for ruminant cattle has guaranteed the species' continued cultivation in Morocco, Spain and Turkey. The crop is easy to cultivate and harvest and can be grown on very shallow, alkaline soils.
The grain when split resembles red lentils. For human consumption the bitterness of the seeds needs to be removed through leaching by several changes of boiling water. Owing to this bitterness, it is unlikely that someone would accidentally confuse bitter vetch with red lentils. According to Zohary and Hopf, this crop is consumed only by the poorest people or in times of famine. Pliny the Elder states that bitter vetch (ervum) has medicinal value like vetch (vicia), citing the letters of Augustus where the emperor wrote that he regained his health from a diet of bitter vetch (N.H. 18.38).