Domestication Of Plants In The Old World

Cereals; 4.

The origin of agriculture is one of the defining events of human history. Some 10,000 years ago bands of hunter-gatherers started to abandon their high-mobility lifestyles in favour of growing crops, and the creation of settled, sedentary communities. This settlement in favour of the agricultural lifestyle triggered the evolution of complex political and economic structures, and technological developments, and ultimately underpinned the rise of all the great civilisations of recent human history. Domestication of plants in the Old World reviews the origin and spread of cultivation in south-west Asia, Europe, and north-east Africa, from the very earliest beginnings. This new edition incorporates the most recent findings from molecular biology about the genetic relations between domesticated plants and their wild ancestors; it adds material on several new crop plants; and it incorporates extensive new archaeological data about the spread of agriculture within the region. The reference list has been completely updated, as have the list of archaeological sites and the site maps. From reviews of the second edition: 'This book is indeed a "mine of information". An enormous and diverse body of important results is digested and presented economically, in a form that should encourage other authors to mine it and apply the results to their own fields.' Nature 'This is an excellent book, suitable for libraries, reference shelves, and anyone who teaches or writes about plant domestication.' Journal of Ethnobiology 'Only a few years after the publication, in 1988, of Zohary and Hopf's textbook, the volume was already out of print.... One cannot be grateful enough to the authors that they seized the opportunity to update the book.... An indispensable reference work; a wealth of information is presented in a systematic way.... This already classic textbook has amply proven its value, and hardly needs further recommendation.' Helinium

In this definitive volume, the authors review the origin and subsequent spread of the plants on which Old World food production was founded. Their account is based on the detailed consideration of the plant remains found at archaeological sites and accumulated knowledge about the present-day wild relatives of cultivated plants.

The origin of agriculture is one of the defining events of human history. Some 11-10,000 years ago bands of hunter-gatherers started to abandon their high-mobility lifestyles in favour of growing crops, and the creation of settled, sedentary communities. This shift into agricultural lifestyle triggered the evolution of complex political and economic structures, and technological developments, and ultimately underpinned the rise of all the great civilisations of recent human history. Domestication of Plants in the Old World reviews and synthesises the information on the origins and domestication of cultivated plants in the Old World, and subsequently the spread of cultivation from southwest Asia into Asia, Europe, and North Africa, from the very earliest beginnings. This book is mainly based on detailed consideration of two lines of evidences: the plant remains found at archaeological sites, and the knowledge that has accumulated about the present-day wild relatives of domesticated plants. This new edition revises and updates previous data and incorporates the most recent findings from molecular biology about the genetic relations between domesticated plants and their wild ancestors, and incorporates extensive new archaeological data about the spread of agriculture within the region. The reference list has been completely updated, as have the list of archaeological sites and the site maps. This is an advanced, research level text suitable for graduate level students and researchers in the fields of crop science, agriculture, archaeology, botanical archaeology, and plant biotechnology. It will also be of relevance and use to agricultural historians and anyone with a wider interest in the rise of civilisation in this region.

Rapid and knowledge-based agricultural origins and plant domestication in the Neolithic Near East gave rise to Western civilizations.

This book consists of the proceedings of a symposium organized by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome. The proceedings are unusual in that it is a rare event to see archaeologists and geneticists coming together to discuss the connection between historical facts and biological phenomena. The aim of the symposium was to discuss the origin of some important cultivated plants (wheat, maize, barley, oat, legumes and fruit trees) not only in relation to genetical mechanisms but also as a complex of historical facts recognizable through archaeological research.This international Meeting based on interdisciplinary concepts, met with a prompt and positive reaction from all those specialists invited to attend. The book itself is an unparalleled contribution to the interdisciplinary knowledge on the origin of crop plants and agriculture.

"This book is the story of how such food plants as wheat and barley, maize, potatoes, the common vegetables, tree and bush fruits were, in the remote past, developed by men out of weeds and wild plants ; and why and where the work was undertaken. IIt tells how flax and cotton and the other fibre plants were brought into man's service, and tamed, transformed almost out of recognition. ..."--From inside of front jacket cover.

What are the origins of agriculture? How did people learn to domesticate plants? How did they come to improve some? How did they learn special techniques for processing certain plants for food? In these highly personal and informal essays-old-fashioned botany, the author calls them-noted botanist Charles Heiser investigates those and other questions raised by the interactions of plants and people. His purpose is to try to find the origins of some of our domesticated plants and to consider other plants that might someday contribute to our food resources. In Of Plants and People, Heiser examines the origins of pumpkins, squashes, and other cucurbits. In The Totora and Thor, he digresses from food plants to trace the spread of the totora reed from South America to Pacific islands. Little Oranges of Quito is about the domestication of a wild plant, the naranjilla, that is going on today. Chenopods: From Weeds to the Halls of Montezuma concerns the uses of the Andean quinua and its relatives, and Sangorache and the Day of the Dead, A Trip to Tulcán, and Chochos and Other Lupines all examine Latin-American domestic plants that could contribute to our own foods. Green ‘Tomatoes’ and Purple 'Cucumbers, the tomate and the pepino, respectively, describes two other crops that have received scant notice in the United States. The subject of "How Many Kinds of Peppers Are There?" is the genus Capsicum, with its sweet green and hot red peppers and all their related species and varieties. Heiser again writes about nonfood plants in the essay "Peperomias," but in the next chapter, "Sumpweed," he discusses a plant that was once used for food but that has been neglected in favor of others. And in "A Plague of Locusts" the author compares the honey locust tree with a close relative to try to determine what gives particular plants advantages in certain environments. In his final essay, Seeds, Sex, and Sacrifice, Heiser relates myth, anthropological evidence, and botanical findings to review the connection between religion and the origin of agriculture. The audience for this book will include botanists, horticulturists, anthropologists, and any reader interested in the interrelationships between plants and people.