Posted on 12/6/2016
Some 12,000 years ago, nomadic hunter-gatherers in the Fertile Crescent – modern-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, western Syria, southeast Turkey, Kuwait, Iraq, and western Iran – took what is considered one of the most important steps in the evolution of human culture: They began harvesting, then replanting, naturally growing wild grasses, including the predecessor to wheat.
This reliable source of food, which also featured long-term storage capability, enabled the development of villages, then towns, cities, nations, and the growth of the human population from an estimated 1 million to more than 7 billion in only 11 millennia. Wheat has grown with and become the single most important food grain of that evolution, with modern world trade in ...