Book contents
- Plant Domestication and the Origins of Agriculture in the Ancient Near East
- Plant Domestication and the Origins of Agriculture in the Ancient Near East
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Tables
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 What Is the Agricultural Revolution?
- 2 From Hunter-Gatherers to Farmers in the Near East
- 3 Models That Describe and Explain the Agricultural Revolution, Including Plant Domestication
- 4 The Plant Formations of the Fertile Crescent and the Wild Progenitors of the Domesticated Founder Crops
- 5 The Difference between Wild and Domesticated Plants
- 6 Traditional versus Modern Agriculture – Stability vs Maximization
- 7 The Differences between Plant Domestication and Crop Evolution under Traditional and Modern Farming Systems
- 8 The Differences between Cereal and Legume Crops in the Near East
- 9 The Choice of Plant Species for Domestication
- 10 Where, When and How Did Near Eastern Plant Domestication Occur?
- 11 Domestication of Fruit Trees in the Near East
- 12 Plant Evolution under Domestication
- 13 A Global View of Plant Domestication in Other World Regions
- 14 Animal Domestication in the Near East
- 15 Plant Domestication and Early Near Eastern Agriculture
- Notes
- Further Reading
- References, Chapter 14
- Glossary: Basic Concepts in Genetics, Botany, Ecology, Agronomy and Zoology
- Index
8 - The Differences between Cereal and Legume Crops in the Near East
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 March 2022
- Plant Domestication and the Origins of Agriculture in the Ancient Near East
- Plant Domestication and the Origins of Agriculture in the Ancient Near East
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Tables
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 What Is the Agricultural Revolution?
- 2 From Hunter-Gatherers to Farmers in the Near East
- 3 Models That Describe and Explain the Agricultural Revolution, Including Plant Domestication
- 4 The Plant Formations of the Fertile Crescent and the Wild Progenitors of the Domesticated Founder Crops
- 5 The Difference between Wild and Domesticated Plants
- 6 Traditional versus Modern Agriculture – Stability vs Maximization
- 7 The Differences between Plant Domestication and Crop Evolution under Traditional and Modern Farming Systems
- 8 The Differences between Cereal and Legume Crops in the Near East
- 9 The Choice of Plant Species for Domestication
- 10 Where, When and How Did Near Eastern Plant Domestication Occur?
- 11 Domestication of Fruit Trees in the Near East
- 12 Plant Evolution under Domestication
- 13 A Global View of Plant Domestication in Other World Regions
- 14 Animal Domestication in the Near East
- 15 Plant Domestication and Early Near Eastern Agriculture
- Notes
- Further Reading
- References, Chapter 14
- Glossary: Basic Concepts in Genetics, Botany, Ecology, Agronomy and Zoology
- Index
Summary
As noted earlier, three cereals (barley, durum or emmer wheat and einkorn wheat), four species of legumes (pea, lentil, chickpea and bitter vetch) and flax, which is neither a cereal nor a legume but rather belongs to the Linaceae family, form the founder crops of the Near East. In this chapter, we compare the biological characteristics of the two main crop groups, the cereals and the legumes. Through this comparison, we shall attempt to trace the manner in which Neolithic farmers assembled their agricultural crop package. As in previous chapters, where we compared wild and domesticated plants and traditional and modern farming systems, in this chapter, too, we compare cereals and legumes based on a detailed study of the different wild species and their domesticated derivatives. Here, as in Chapter 7, we use traditional cultivars (landraces) (see Glossary, Botany, Ecology and Agronomy, Traditional cultivar (landrace)) as a reference rather than modern cultivars that were bred during the last century.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022