crops. Th ey included three grains: emmer wheat, einkorn
wheat, and barley; four legumes: lentils, peas, chickpeas, and
bitter vetch; and fl ax, a fi brous plant that furnishes the raw
material for linen. Historians know little about the domesti-
cation of the legumes and fl ax but have found a great deal of
information on the domestication of the grains.
Th e grains were the fi rst cultivated plants. Emmer wheat,
einkorn wheat, and barley are all grasses that are so-called
edge species in the wild, growing naturally on fi ne-grained
soil at the edges of woodlands at high elevations. All three
of them appear to have been domesticated in a relatively
short period of time, between 8000 and 7800 b.c.e. Emmer
was fi rst cultivated around Jericho in the Jordan River val-
ley and near Damascus in present-day Syria around 7800
b.c.e. Einkorn wheat grew throughout the Anatolian Pen-
insula, and hunter-gatherers are known to have harvested
it between 9000 and 8000 b.c.e. Farmers were cultivating it
near Damascus and Jericho around the same time as they
were domesticating emmer.
Barley grew wild throughout the entire Fertile Crescent.
Archaeologists have found evidence of domesticated barley
near Damascus and Jericho between 7800 and 7600 b.c.e.,
and it is clear that farmers of the time were gradually select-
ing barley types to maximize yields. Wild barley has two rows
of grains on its heads. Th e earliest farmers grew this type of
barley, but by 7500 b.c.e. they were also growing a denser
type of barley with six rows of grain per head. Farmers in
other areas did not manage to produce the denser six-rowed
barley and continued to grow the two-rowed type along with
emmer and einkorn.
Grains soon became the staple of Fertile Crescent diets,
furnishing the majority of calories for agricultural peoples in
the region. In addition, grains kept well in the dry climate
of the region, providing a steady supply of food year-round.
People ate wheat by grinding it into meal and cooking it as
bread or porridge. Legumes were also an important food
source. Lentils and peas were domesticated around the same
time as grains. Both grew wild in the Fertile Crescent, and
hunter-gatherers had been gathering them long before they
were domesticated. Wild peas and lentils grow in pods that
usually explode to spray the seeds outward, but some mutant
pods do not. Humans selected these nonpopping pods as the
most desirable because they kept the peas and lentils conve-
niently packaged until they could be picked. Peas and lentils
are high in protein, keep for a long time when dried, and can
be cooked quickly by boiling.
THE FIRST AGRICULTURAL SETTLEMENTS
Th e fi rst places in the world where humans deliberately
planted seeds in order to harvest their crops in the future
were isolated to a small area called the Levantine Corridor, a
six- to twenty-fi ve-mile-wide corridor along the Jordan Riv-
er extending from the Damascus basin to Jericho and neigh-
boring sites. Each of these sites had a high water table and
high water supply. Early farmers had no irrigation systems
and so conditions had to be optimal for them to succeed. As
of 8000 b.c.e. people were clearly collecting wild grasses to
eat their seeds. Th ey already had the equipment used to pro-
cess grains: fl int sickles for harvesting, fl at grinding stones,
and bowls.
At the site called Netiv Hagdud in Israel, archaeologists
have found evidence of the fi rst steps toward genuine agri-
culture. Some 9,800 years ago a single type of domesticated
two-rowed barley appeared along with the wild grains people
continued to harvest. Th is is the earliest known example of
people deliberately transitioning from gathering to cultiva-
tion. Archaeologists are not sure exactly why people began
settling down and cultivating crops, but they believe it was
tied to a growing population that made it harder for people
to wander from place to place without running into competi-
tors. As for what inspired people to begin experimenting with
putting seeds in the ground, that, too, is unknown. Once peo-
ple settled in one place and built structures, they naturally
developed rules for running their new social structure. Th ey
had time to make tools to facilitate gathering of plant foods
and were not constrained by the need to move them.
Th e earliest farmers were Stone Age people; they did not
know how to work metal into tools so they made tools out of
stone, bone, wood, and clay. Ancient farmers at fi rst dug the
soil with pointed wooden sticks called digging sticks. Th ese
were soon replaced by hoes with stone blades and wooden
handles. As farms grew larger, farmers began using woodenCuneiform tablet recording barley rations given to workers and their
families at the temple of the goddess Bau, about 2350–2200 b.c.e.,
from Tello (ancient Girsu), southern Iraq (© Th e Trustees of the
British Museum)agriculture: The Middle East 25