86 i Flora Unveiled
Origin of Cultivated Date PalmsThe natural distribution of wild date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) prior to domestication
has never been satisfactorily established. This is because domestication occurred so long ago
and the cultivation of date palms spread so quickly over so large an area that it is no longer
possible for botanists to identify a particular population of wild P. dactylifera trees that gave
rise to the domesticated forms.^1 However, archeology has provided some clues to the origins
of the cultivated trees.
The earliest known remains of P. dactylifera seeds were found at a Neolithic site on the
island of Dalma off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Two carbonized date seeds, dat-
ing to around 5000 bce and 4650 bce, were found at the site, but it’s unclear whether they
were cultivated, collected from wild trees, or imported from a distant location.^2 A larger
cache of carbonized date seeds dating to about 4000 bce were found in the city of Eridu in
Lower Mesopotamia. Eridu is now situated in the desert south of the Euphrates, but during
the Bronze Age it was located next to a branch of the Euphrates River. The combination of
searing desert heat and abundant water made Eridu an ideal location for date cultivation.
The archaeological record suggests that about 300 years later, date orchards spread to the
Jordan River in the Levant area.^3 By around 2500 bce, date palms were being cultivated in
the Indus Valley region of the Indian subcontinent, and the practice finally reached Egypt
during the Middle Kingdom period around 2040 bce.
“Mesopotamia” is the Greek name for the region that lies between the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers in modern Iraq. During the Bronze Age, Mesopotamia was a vast, teem-
ing wetland larger than the Florida Everglades. So biologically rich and favorable was the
area for human habitation that biblical scholars often associated it with the fabled Garden
of Eden. It is here in Lower Mesopotamia that the original wild population of P. datylifera
may have been located. According to an old Arabic proverb, the date palm prefers to grow
“with its feet in water and its head in skyfire.” A wetland with little rainfall, where tem-
peratures frequently rise in excess of 100°F, provides an ideal habitat for wild date palms.
Moreover, P. datylifera is surprisingly salt- tolerant, which suggests that it may have evolved
near brackish water.^4 Thus, it could have originated near the site where the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers empty into the Persian Gulf. Today, that area would be around the town of
Basra, but it is likely that silting out has occurred over the centuries and that, in 4000 bce,
the Gulf extended farther inland, closer to the early cities of Uruk and Eridu. Indeed, the
Gulf waters played, and continue to play, a large role in the hydrology of the area. Twice a
day the tide rises, raising the levels of the rivers by up to 6 feet. In ancient times, the increase
in the levels of the rivers helped to flood the numerous canals that were dug to irrigate crops
in the dryer northern areas.
Who Domesticated the Date Palm?If domestication had been achieved by around 4000 bce, the cultivation of wild date palm
trees, which preceded domestication, must have begun much earlier, perhaps during the
fifth or sixth millennia bce. This period corresponds to the Ubaid period.
During the Ubaid period, people in southern Mesopotamia subsisted on a diet rich in
fish, turtles, crabs, and sea birds. Over time, they maintained livestock, including cattle,