Introduction – the development of agriculture

For most of our history, we humans have been omnivores who enjoyed a varied plant and animal based diet that was derived from a hunter-gathering lifestyle. This special relationship has bound people and plants in mutual dependence for well over one hundred millennia. During this period, our Palaeolithic and Neolithic ancestors experimented with many different strategies of plant exploitation, especially during the last hundred millennia when climatic conditions changed repeatedly and other resources such as large animals often became progressively more difficult to obtain. For tens of millennia before the start of formal agriculture, societies throughout the world were engaged in many types of relatively sophisticated management of their favoured food plants. For example, 23 000 years ago, people in the Jordan Valley were already harvesting and grinding wild cereal grains, and baking the flour into bread and cakes. Discoveries of similar grinding implements dating back as far as 48 000 years ago might mean that the management and processing of cereals went on for well over 30 000 years before these plants were ever cultivated as crops.