Fundamental crops

joeroe reports that Neolithic farming is more complex than we thought.

We used to think we knew which crops, still in use in western-Eurasia today, were used in ancient times. So these were the "founding crops" as were sketched in the 1980s. Now, we've dug to levels which can tell us which crops were actually sown and grown, where, and when.

Apparently the first breads had roots (not potatoes obviously) ground into them. A "new glume wheat" was widely grown but - like the sylphium - seems no longer to be among us. Some of the first domesticates were near-duds which weren't much used as opposed to others; I wonder if millet might count (yes yes I know millet proper was eastern then), rather similar grains which farmers - once they'd domesticated herbivores - preferred simply to feed over to them. Some grains decidedly meh in the Near East could be better grown, or at least comparatively-advantaged grown, elsewhere, like in the Balkans.

The authors start the Neolithic 11.6–10.2 ka cal BP so, like, 9650-8250 BC. Of the classic founders, only barley and lentils appear then. Barley is brought to Cyprus during this time; along with emmer 10.8ka=8850-650 BC. They are followed by flax/linen, oat, pea, a lot of stuff including trees like fig and pistachio. Flax is seen at Jericho 7950 BC.

In these very early Neolithic villages, if close to some sparsely-inhabited forests, it may be that children would just go out to pick berries and trap rabbits / birds / squirrels. The scale of these towns still wasn't too large. Maybe that's what Cyprus is doing at the head of the innovations, being an island with limited space for hunting and gathering (although I'm sure they did a lively harvest of molluscs and shore-hugging fish).