The cultivation and domestication of wheat and barley in Iran, brief review of a long history

Wheat and barley are among the most important staple foods, originally exploited, cultivated and domesticated in the Near East, in places between the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Western slopes of the Zagros Mountains, at the beginning of the Holocene epoch. Almost all wild progenitor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Botanical review 2021-03, Vol.87 (1), p.1-22
Main Authors: Ghahremaninejad, Farrokh, Hoseini, Ehsan, Jalali, Sahar
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Archaeology
Barley
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Commercialization
Company growth
Cultivation
Cultivation (Land)
Domestication
Food
Food sources
Grain
Grain cultivation
Growth
Holocene
Life Sciences
Mountains
Plant Anatomy/Development
Plant Ecology
Plant Physiology
Plant Sciences
Plant Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography
Shores
Taxation
Tillage
Wheat
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Summary:Wheat and barley are among the most important staple foods, originally exploited, cultivated and domesticated in the Near East, in places between the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Western slopes of the Zagros Mountains, at the beginning of the Holocene epoch. Almost all wild progenitors of the domesticated species of wheat and barley naturally grow in Iran, a Near Eastern Country, and were frequently exploited by the residents of the Iranian plateau throughout history. The cultivation of grains was initiated by hunter-gatherers dwelled in Iran as a supplementary source of food in the 12th millennium BP; however, the domestication of wheat and barley, in the 10th millennium BP, revolutionized life-style of the Iranian people, and led to a gradual but steady increase in the complexity of human societies in Iran. Every aspects of grain cultivation and its technical difficulties pushed forward human societies to develop more and more efficient methods of cultivation, irrigation, transportation, storage and reservation, food preparation, trade and commercialization, governmental taxation and scientific exploration and invention, which were reviewed briefly in the current manuscript on the basis of the available archaeological and archaeobotanical literature, covering a timespan from 12th millennium BP to 1st millennium AD.
ISSN:0006-8101
1874-9372
DOI:10.1007/s12229-020-09244-w