References:
Plants and People, pages 56-58; 178-186Learning Objectives:
On Food and Cooking, pages 126-134
The three regions where agriculture originated.Humans are OMNIVOROUS, which means that we will eat anything that is edible. Humans have always lived in family groups. Early in human history, humans lived mainly in small clans (tribes) of related individuals. Humans foraged (searched for food), discovering which of the plants in the environment were edible and which were not. Archeological sites of early human settlements reveal a diversified diet including a large number of different plant types, although the dependence on monocot grasses and similar organisms has apparently always been characteristic of human societies of any kind. While the prevailing myth has been that "hunters and gatherers", people that forage for food in the environment rather than grow their food had little time for anything else, studies of some current hunter/gatherer societies indicate that they spend about 2.5 days per week per person collecting food, leaving lots of time for other activities. It was probably only very recently when humans in civilized cultures spend significantly less time finding food.The place (of the above three) of origin of major cultivated crop plants:
Wheat
Barley
Peas
Lentils
Rice
Millet
Hemp
Squash
Corn
Tomatoes
White Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Beans
Peanut
Coffee
Chili Peppers
Sugar Cane
Sugar Beet
Hunters and gatherers were able to determine which of locally available plants meet human nutritional needs, and collect them as needed. Most herbal medicine involves cures for nutrient deficiencies, and knowledge of which foods were needed to meet nutritional needs was a very important part of the culture and a significant part of religious practices.
However, as human populations increased, hunting and gathering could not sustain a competitive tribal culture. More reliable sources of food were needed. Our textbook outlines 2 hypotheses as to the origin of agriculture; one that some sort of "guru" came up with the idea of a societal transition; an idea that I consider quite far fetched. The other idea is that cultures knowing what the "staple" crops, the most reliable of the most useful food plants were. decided to maintain their own cultures as a hedge, possibly against competition from other tribes, or possibly because of it (they were excluded from the prime foraging ground, so they made their own!).
In any event, agriculture began in three regions of the world; central and south America, The middle east/northeast Africa and the far east. People in each region cultivated crops found in that region.
The New World
The earliest evidences of domesticated plants in the new world indicate that squashes were the first crops cultivated in the new world, about 10,000 years ago. The crop plant most commonly associated with the new world is corn, which was probably domesticated about 5,500 years ago. The societies that cultivated squashes and corn were located in Mexico. There is also evidence that in eastern US and Canada, crops such as sunflower, marsh elder, goosefoot and wild gourd were cultivated about 2,000 years ago.
The civilizations that grew up in central and south america cultivated a wide variety of crops, including amaranth, tomato, white and sweet potato, avocado, several species of beans, and chili peppers.
Other crop plants native to the central and south america are vanilla, pineapple and allspice.
The Far East
The Yellow and Yangtze River regions of China, as well as the Spirit Cave of Thailand are areas of the far east with the earliest evidences of agriculture. Crops cultivated were rice, millet, rape and hemp. The earliest signs of agriculture occur in the Yangtze River region, where rice crops were cultivated 11,500 years ago. Sugar cane is native to the islands of the south Pacific Ocean. Cultivation of sugar in India is known from the times of ancient Greeks and Romans. Sugar was not used too much in western Europe until the 15th century, when sugar cultivation was begun in the new world by western European colonial powers. The cultivation of sugar cane led to the development of the slave trade, with individuals kidnapped from their homes in Africa and transported to sugar plantations in the new world where they were used as slave labor.
The Middle East
Archeological evidence suggests that humans began cultivation of barley in the middle east over 10,000 years ago. Wheat, pea, lentil and vetch were also cultivated in early middle eastern cultures. Sugar beet is native to the Mediterranean region, but was not used for sugar until recently. Sugar beet is a beet, just like the red beets we use as vegetables. Beets are members of the goosefoot family. The sugar in sugar beet is harvested from the root. Wild beets have about 2% sugar in their roots, however, selection for sugar content among individual plants has caused sugar composition to rise to 20%. Most of our western diet is derived from early cultures in the middle east, where plants such as lettuce, radish, apple, pear, cherry, fig, date, strawberry, cucumber, olive, pea, basil, mint and many others were part of the diet B.C.
A Russian botanist, Nikolai I. Vavilov, who was executed by the Soviets for being a Darwinian, developed the idea that it is important to find the centers of diversity for major crop plants in order to provide genetic variation needed to grow crops in the variable environments that characterize the earth. For example, crops more or less drought tolerant, crops resistant to different types of pests, and crops that grow optimally at different temperatures are needed to improve worldwide crop production. We can only work with the genetic variation that actually exists, and plants typically are most diverse in certain areas of the world, which usually correspond to their point of origin (the places to which they are best adapted, and thus the greatest variety of them survives and reproduces naturally). While some of Vavilov's conclusions were not correct, the idea is now a major part of worldwide crop management.