Thursday, November 12, 2009

Domesticated Wheat In 23,000 B.C.?



Wheat has been cultivated domestically at least since 9,000 B.C. and probably earlier.

Domesticated Einkorn wheat at Nevali Cori 40 miles northwest of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey has been dated to 9,000 B.C.

Which Came First, Monumental Building Projects or Farming?, Archaeo News, Dec 2008.

At Nevali Cori, a Neolithic village 40 miles northwest of Schmidt's site, archaeologists found seeds of domesticated einkorn wheat dating from 9000 BCE.
However domesticated barley has been dated to 23,000 B.C. and some say this is also true of wheat.

Eureka Alert (Aug 2004): Oldest Evidence for Processing of Wild Cereals: Starch Grains from Barley, Wheat, on Grinding Stone.

When the water level in the Sea of Galilee dropped in 1989, archaeologists rushed to excavate Ohalo II, an ancient human settlement. On the floor of one hut they found a large, flat, basaltic stone. The stone's uneven surface yielded starch grains of grass seeds, mostly from wild barley and possibly also from wheat. This evidence presented in the journal Nature (August 5, 2004), pushes back the date for the processing of close wild relatives of domesticated wheat and barley, a key step in cultural development, to 23,000 years before the present era. "Ten thousand years before people were cultivating cereals, they were processing wild barley: starch grain analysis establishes a clear link between an intensive exploitation of wild cereals and the subsequent development of plant cultivation and domestication in the region " explains Dolores Piperno, lead author.
Piperno, D.R., et al., Processing of Wild Cereal Grains in the Upper Palaeolithic Revealed by Starch Grain Analysis, Nature, 430, Pages 670-673, Aug 2004

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and wheat (Triticum monococcum L. and Triticum turgidum L.) were among the principal 'founder crops' of southwest Asian agriculture. Two issues that were central to the cultural transition from foraging to food production are poorly understood. They are the dates at which human groups began to routinely exploit wild varieties of wheat and barley, and when foragers first utilized technologies to pound and grind the hard, fibrous seeds of these and other plants to turn them into easily digestible foodstuffs. Here we report the earliest direct evidence for human processing of grass seeds, including barley and possibly wheat, in the form of starch grains recovered from a ground stone artefact from the Upper Palaeolithic site of Ohalo II in Israel. Associated evidence for an oven-like hearth was also found at this site, suggesting that dough made from grain flour was baked. Our data indicate that routine processing of a selected group of wild cereals, combined with effective methods of cooking ground seeds, were practiced at least 12,000 years before their domestication in southwest Asia.
It is obvious that corn is over 80,000 years old.

12 comments:

Jeffery Keown said...

I don't know that a study of wheat proves that corn was domesticated so long ago, but it does lend weight to the idea. You use the much sexier term of "genetic engineered," which might be technically true of domesticated plants and animals, but sounds like somebody had a lab and sequencing computers.

Then again... maybe you think they did have sequencers and labs and pipettes and stuff.

You've said stranger things...

Quantum_Flux said...

I wonder if this means our ancestors drank Wheat Beer with their banana breakfasts?

OilIsMastery said...

JK,

They had laboratories more advanced than anything we have today.

They knew about the human embryo, knew about the atom, and knew about nuclear power.

"At least those atoms whence derives their power
To throw forth fire and send out light from under
To shoot the sparks and scatter embers wide."
-- Lucretius, philosopher poet, 54 B.C.

And they had celestial weapons that were more powerful than anything you can imagine.

"When I heard that the just and renowned Arjuna after having been to the celestial regions, had there obtained celestial weapons from Indra himself then, O Sanjaya, I had no hope of success. When I heard that afterwards Arjuna had vanquished the Kalakeyas and the Paulomas proud with the boon they had obtained and which had rendered them invulnerable even to the celestials, then, O Sanjaya, I had no hope of success." -- Dhritarashtra, Mahabharata, 8th century B.C.

"This weapon [astra] can slay any being within the three worlds, including Indra and Rudra." -- Mahabharata, 8th century B.C.

OilIsMastery said...

QF,

Well apparently they were having outdoor barbeques in cities 700,000 years ago.

KV said...

OIM,

When a chimp decides on a comely, it is genetic selection... Even, wimps selected a few fair maidens from all that they left behind...

You really need to understand evolution and interaction among species...

OilIsMastery said...

KV,

You are living proof there is no such thing as evolution.

Quantum_Flux said...

Do aliens drink caffiene or do their wimpy stomachs drive them to hire highly evolved chimp cousins to drink caffiene and work at Area 51? If so, why not just develop Gort-ian Robots to do the work for them?

Jeffery Keown said...

You are living proof there is no such thing as evolution.

History Denial and ad hominem... you've out done yourself.

Jeffery Keown said...

I just read the story you cited.

Eight dwellings do not make a city.

The dating is spurious, based entirely on the artifacts found.

Bones would prove the date, but I thought you creationists didn't believe in carbon dating?

KV said...

OIM,

You wrote:
You are living proof there is no such thing as evolution.

OK, chimp!

KV said...

QF,

You wrote: Do aliens drink caffiene...

They can't, they don't sweat nor do they have pee-hole, ask OIM, he knows!

Zoul karneyn said...

Hi guys, In one of such archaeological sites in Anatolia /Turkiye, some wheat grains were discovered. Site well protected and several thousand years old. The grains discovered in clay pots were alive and planted inside an army base for whatever the reason they might think. Anyway, grains grew into several branched wheat plant with highly branched top sections that has got around 300-350 seed grains. I have received one branch from relatives working in that base. As a whole plant produces 300x 8=2400 seeds or more from a single seed. I am trying to grow these in a green house this year.
I have pictures of this seed branch, anybody interested to see should contact me @: uluerhan@gmail.com
regards,