Agricultural Studies 1000
Evolution of Agriculture
Group 3
Domestication and Cultivation of wild Plant Life
How did certain wild plants get turned into crops?
Extremely important to the development of agriculture was the domestication of
plant food stuff. Cultivation is the process by which people prepare, till and fertilize soil
in order to prepare the best environment for the growth of a specific plant. After
cultivation comes domestication. Domestication can be defined as cultivating a plant and,
thereby, consciously or unconsciously causing it to change genetically from its will
ancestor in ways that will make it more useful to humans. Conscious Domestication is
knowingly breeding certain strains of a plant in order to produce better varieties that will
breed true. For instance, today humans use sophisticated techniques and an advanced
knowledge of genetics to breed better crops, even using genetic engineering to transfer
specific useful genes between desired plants. Unconscious domestication occurs when
plants that are more attractive to animals spread more readily and profusely by virtue of
their being able to attractive animals to carry their seeds locations further away than less
attractive plants, thereby continuing the attractive traits. When humans harvested the
most attractive wild plants, they unwittingly spread the seeds along four main places; the
path towards home via spilling en-route, latrines (through ingestion and defecation),
spittoons (spitting out the larger seeds), and by throwing away spoiled fruit.
What than Makes a Plant more Attractive?
The characteristics of a plant that make it more attractive to human consumers can
be split into two main groups; visible traits and non-visible traits. Visible traits are to do
with the sensible qualities of the fruit. These qualities are often attractive to the eye of
both human and animal. Traits like; color, shape, taste, and oiliness of the fruit. As well
as the seedless ness of a fruit, or how fleshy a fruit looks, in the case of the banana.
Humans are even attracted by the long fibers of some plants, for example; hemp, flax or
even cotton. Non-visible traits are the inner mechanisms that allow for the accentuation
of visible traits. They are also the mechanisms responsible for the apparent success of the
plant that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Traits like; seed dispersal mechanism found
in non-popping seeds, lentils, flax, poppies and non-shattering stemmed wheat and
barley. Another trait is the seed coat thickness and lack of germination inhibitors, so that
the seeds can sport as soon as possible. Reproductive systems of plants are also valuable
non-visible traits, for instance, whether or not the plant is self pollinating, preserving
genetic mutations or not.
Earliest Crops in the Fertile Crescent
The region in the modern middle-east commonly known as the Fertile Crescent is
seen to be the sight of the oldest domesticated crops to date. There have been found
wheat, barely and peas dating back to 10 000 years, making these the first known crops.
Theses crops were among the first wild plants domesticated in the fertile crescent because
their wild plant ancestors had the following characteristics: already edible, high yielding,
easily grown, quick growing, readily storable and a high percentage of individual plants
were self-pollinating. Thanks to these traits, the first crops required very little genetic
change to make them more useful to human.
After the wheat, barley and peas, came fruit and nut trees such as; olives, figs,
dates, pomegranates and grapes. This group of plants was domesticated later than the first
three due to the minimum of 3 years of growth to the harvestable crop. Thus making
these crops suitable only for humans fully committed to sedimentary village life.
Inversely these crops were domesticated before other fruit crops because these plants
could be grown more easily than other fruit crops due to their ability to propagate directly
from seeds or cuttings. They were also more frequently self-pollinating. Third stage fruit
crops like; apples, pears, plums and cherries, were domesticated the latest because of the
advanced agricultural techniques needed to grow them. Techniques like grafting which
was first developed in China. Another difficulty was that most plants required crosspollination, forcing farmers to either find self-pollinating mutants or plant genetically
different varieties. Along with these fruits there were crops that started off as weeds but
were developed into crops in the same time period, these crops include: rye, oats, turnips,
radishes, beets, leeks and lettuce.
Advantages of Fertile Crescent
One may ask why agriculture never seemed to arise independently in some fertile
and highly suitable areas, and why did it develop earlier in some areas. The Fertile
Crescent is a place agriculture developed independently and early. This is due to certain
advantages that were exclusive to this area as opposed to other suitable regions. Firstly,
the Fertile Crescent is the largest zone of Mediterranean climate in the world. With its
mild, wet winters and hot dry summers; it favored the evolution of annual plants. These
annual plants had annual seeds adapted to survive the long dry season, thus also
adaptable to long term storage by humans. This area also had an abundance of highly
productive, big-seeded, annual wild species, a high percentage of which were selfpollinating, thus requiring little genetic change. The topography and climate of this area
varied greatly within small distances. This allowed for staggered harvesting, and by
bringing highland varieties to the lowlands, productivity and hardiness was increased.
The Eight Founder Crops
The first crops that provided a viable base for agriculture in the Fertile Crescent are
called Founder Crops. These crops are divided into three main groups; cereals, pulses
and Fibers. Cereals include Emmer Wheat, Einkorn Wheat and Barley. Pulses are crops
like; Peas, Chickpeas, Lentils and Bitter Vetch. Fibers are considered crops like, flax. Of
these crops only Flax and Barley ranged far from the Fertile Crescent. These crops
combined with the Fertile Crescent’s availability of big mammal species for
domestication like Goats, Sheep, Pigs and Cows, provided a lifestyle that effectively
competed with the hunter/gatherer lifestyle. The domestication of crops and animals led
to intensified food production and more dense human populations. Settling into an
agriculturally-based lifestyle provided this area with the basics for an economy to evolve;
carbohydrates, protein, fat, clothing, traction and transport. As an economy evolved, the
lifestyle and skills of agriculture spread to other areas.