Homeland of wheat: where did wheat come from on Earth?

For many centuries, wheat has determined the food security of entire states. To this day it is a staple food for millions of people. Where did this culture come to us from and how long ago did it take over the food market of the planet? Read about the origin of wheat on Earth in our article.

How did wheat appear and where did it come from?

Story wheat originates from the Middle Eastern region known as the Fertile Crescent. It covers modern Israel, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, the outskirts of Turkey and Iran. It was there in 12 thousand BC. e. Primitive people began to eat a wild plant, which became the ancestor of modern wheat.

The wild-growing cereal fell off immediately after ripening; moreover, the grain was poorly cleared from the shell, which made its processing labor-intensive.

Ancient farmers gradually domesticated the crop, selecting the best seeds. The earliest archaeological finds of cereal date back to 10 thousand BC. e. They were found in the Karakadag mountainous region of modern southeastern Turkey.

From archaeological materials left behind by nomads in Western Asia, researchers learned that people, having learned to use grains, gradually moved from hunting animals to collecting seeds for food.

Reference. Wheat completely changed the way of life of primitive man, predetermining the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture. This happened around 9 thousand.years ago and was called the Neolithic Revolution.

Ancient farmers dried, threshed, simmered and made flat cakes. Initially, the grains were eaten raw, then they began to grind them with stones, obtaining coarse flour, from which they cooked a kind of porridge. This primitive type of processing is a prototype making flour and baking bread.

In its original form, bread was a paste of half-raw seeds. Such cakes are found among the peoples of Africa and in some Asian villages.

For many centuries, farmers continued to take samples from their fields of seeds that showed the best characteristics - ease of collection, productivity, weather resistance, – and the new wheat began to dominate.

Soft

Center of origin soft varieties wheat (Triticum aestivum) is considered to be the southern part of modern Turkey. The earliest finds date back to 7 thousand BC. e. This type of cereal crop is the result of cross-pollination of ancient forms of wheat and wild grasses. The hybrid immediately showed good productivity, which attracted the attention of early farmers.

Today, soft wheat accounts for more than 90% of the world's crops.

Solid

The area of ​​origin of durum wheat (Triticum durum) is not precisely established. Scientists mainly call the Mediterranean region its homeland, since it is here that an exceptional diversity of its varieties and varieties was discovered.

The introduction of this cereal into agriculture occurred in 4–3 thousand BC. e. In global wheat production, the share of durum varieties is about 5%.

Spring and winter

Winter and spring crops are represented by both soft and hard varieties.

Our ancestors, living in regions with mild winters and high snow cover, discovered the benefits of planting wheat in the fall. The advantages of this method are that it is possible to use moisture obtained from melting snow for growth and achieve earlier ripening compared to spring planting.

Over the centuries, winter cereal varieties have been developed using folk selection methods, and the most frost-resistant and able to withstand sudden changes in weather conditions have been selected. This is how it appeared winter wheat.

The first report of the cultivation of winter cereals in the Caucasus in Russia dates back to the mid-19th century. At first, due to the low frost resistance of winter varieties, winter varieties became more widespread in Russia. spring forms of durum wheat. Today, mostly winter varieties have been bred and grown.

Before the onset of winter cold, winter crops have time to germinate and take root well, and with the arrival of spring they continue their life cycle, ripening earlier than spring crops.

In those regions where winter crops are not damaged by frost, they are usually preferred as they are significantly more productive.

Crops of spring varieties predominate in the northeastern regions of Russia.

The main differences between spring and winter crops:

1. Winter varieties are sown in early autumn, spring varieties - in mid-spring.
2. Winter crops are much superior to spring crops in yield, but inferior in baking properties.
3. Spring grass absorbs nutrients from the soil more intensively and is resistant to drought.
4. Winter crops withstand sudden changes in weather conditions well, but are more demanding on soil quality.

Wheat in Rus'

The Slavs, who from time immemorial inhabited the territory of modern Russia, were mainly engaged in agriculture. The main cereals cultivated were:

• wheat - mostly in the south;
• rye - in the north;
• barley - in the very north of the agricultural zone, in harsh climatic conditions.

When did they start growing

Wheat appeared in Rus' in the 5th century BC. e. This is one of the very first cereals grown by the Indo-Europeans, including the Slavs. Our ancestors borrowed it from the Goths who lived in the south of Eastern Europe. The word "bread" comes from the Gothic Hlaifs.

Wheat became one of the first crops grown by the Slavs. It is mentioned in the earliest written records. But rye appeared on our lands only in the 11th-12th centuries. This is evidenced by the records of Nestor the chronicler and materials from archaeological excavations in Novgorod. However, thanks to its resistance to the unfavorable northern climate, rye very quickly spread throughout the territory of present-day Russia. However, in the southern regions wheat invariably dominated.

What species were grown?

The Slavs grew a completely different type of wheat than we are used to today. They sown one of its ancient species - spelt. This is a semi-wild cereal crop, a relative of durum wheat. It is called "einkorn". Spelled grain is covered with several layers of film.

Whole spelled grains, crushed and ground, were often cooked. This is where the Russian name “wheat” comes from – from the Old Church Slavonic root *рьšенъ – “to push”, “to crush”, “to rub”. In ancient Russian written monuments of the 11th century, this word appears frequently.

Today, interest in this ancient culture is being revived all over the world. The high fiber content along with a small amount of gluten makes prehistoric wheat an ideal product for a healthy and hypoallergenic diet.

Spread of culture to other regions

The Neolithic Revolution quickly promoted wheat beyond its homeland.

The spread of cultivated cereals from the Fertile Crescent region occurred as early as 9 thousand BC. e., when it appeared in the Aegean Sea region.

Wheat came to India around 6 thousand BC. e., and to Ethiopia, the Iberian Peninsula, the British Isles and Scandinavia - no later than 5 thousand BC. e.

At the same time, this plant became known in Northern Greece, Macedonia and Northern Mesopotamia. About 1000 years later, wheat reached China.

It appeared on the territory of what is now Eastern Europe by 6 thousand AD. e.

Some scientists believe that the domestication of grain crops occurred in different regions at approximately the same time, but the facts refute this. Archaeological evidence of its early domestication is lacking anywhere except in the Middle East region.

By the beginning of our era, the culture had spread throughout Asia and Africa, and during the period of the Roman conquests it began to be grown in different places in Europe.

Cereals were brought to South and then to North America in the 16th-17th centuries by European colonists, and only in the 18th-19th centuries - to Canada and Australia. This is how wheat spread throughout the planet.

Reference. Landrace wheat varieties bred in Russia have become widespread and have become the source material for the development of a number of varieties in other countries. Many winter varieties exported from our country have retained their Russian names in the USA to this day: Kharkovskaya, Beloglina, Odesskaya, Krymka.

Wild ancestor of wheat

The origin of the cereal can be traced back to a wild grass of the Triticeae family, which appeared 75 thousand years ago. This grass is the oldest ancestor of wheat.

The earliest harvested wheat was wild emmer in the eastern Mediterranean, which is about 12 thousand years old.

Primitive people liked the seeds of the plant and began to use them for food. Materials from archaeological excavations indicate that in 10 thousand BC. e. our ancestors already cultivated great wheat. The ears of the ancient cereal were brittle, and the grains were small and easily fell off immediately after ripening, so it was impossible to collect them. Therefore, people had to use unripe grains for food without waiting for them to fall off.

For thousands of years, ancient farmers cultivated and selected wild grass grains, domesticating the grain. Domestication proceeded very slowly: archaeologists estimate that wheat was gradually domesticated about 6,500 years ago.

Cultivation, repeated collection, selection and sowing of seeds of wild grasses led to the creation of new varieties, the grains of which became larger, more resistant to shedding and much more convenient to collect and further process. The grains of cultivated wheat remain firmly in the ear until they are knocked out during threshing.

Because of this strength of the ear, domesticated wheat lost the ability to reproduce without the help of people. Its widespread distribution is the work of man.

Conclusion

The origin of grain crops can be traced back tens of thousands of years with an accuracy of several tens of kilometers. People helped it conquer the planet, and today not a single cereal has as many types and varieties as wheat. But, despite this diversity, its primitive varieties are still very popular today among supporters of a healthy diet.