Overview

Although it may sound exaggerated, civilization would not have advanced without the domestication of plants and animals. Since the domestication of wheat and other crops is so important to the development of civilization, its origins must be studied to understand the links between farming and other innovations that form an advanced society.

Background

Although domestication of plants and crops cultivated for consumption has been carried on for 11,000 years, this figure pales in comparison with the seven million years humans fed themselves by hunting wild animals and eating wild plants. Without the transition, however, mankind could not have completed its social and cultural evolution. Cultivation of cereals played a major part in the shift from hunting and gathering to plant and animal husbandry.

Several regions were first movers in developing independent domestication. Bread wheat, barley, oats...