The cultivation and domestication of wheat and barley in Iran, brief review of a long history

Abstract

Wheat and barley are among the most important staple foods, originally exploited, cultivated and domesticated in the Near East, in places between the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Western slopes of the Zagros Mountains, at the beginning of the Holocene epoch. Almost all wild progenitors of the domesticated species of wheat and barley naturally grow in Iran, a Near Eastern Country, and were frequently exploited by the residents of the Iranian plateau throughout history. The cultivation of grains was initiated by hunter-gatherers dwelled in Iran as a supplementary source of food in the 12th millennium BP; however, the domestication of wheat and barley, in the 10th millennium BP, revolutionized life-style of the Iranian people, and led to a gradual but steady increase in the complexity of human societies in Iran. Every aspects of grain cultivation and its technical difficulties pushed forward human societies to develop more and more efficient methods of cultivation, irrigation, transportation, storage and reservation, food preparation, trade and commercialization, governmental taxation and scientific exploration and invention, which were reviewed briefly in the current manuscript on the basis of the available archaeological and archaeobotanical literature, covering a timespan from 12th millennium BP to 1st millennium AD.