The founder crops or primary domesticates are a group of flowering plants that were domesticated by early farming communities in Southwest Asia and went on to form the basis of agricultural economies across Eurasia. As originally defined by Daniel Zohary and Maria Hopf, they consisted of three cereals (emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley), four pulses (lentil, pea, chickpea, and bitter vetch), and flax. Subsequent research has indicated that many other species could be considered founder crops. These species were amongst the first domesticated plants in the world.
Definition
In 1988, the Israeli botanist Daniel Zohary and the German botanist Maria Hopf formulated their founder crops hypothesis. They proposed that eight plant species were domesticated by early Neolithic farming communities in Southwest Asia (Fertile Crescent) and went on to form the basis of agricultural economies across much of Eurasia, including Southwest Asia, South Asia, Europe, and North Africa, in a single process. The founder crops consisted of three cereals (emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley), four pulses (lentil, pea, chickpea, and bitter vetch), and flax. They were amongst the first domesticated plants in the world. These founder crops were domesticated in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period, between 10,500 and 7,500 years ago.
Different species formed the basis of early agricultural economies in other centres of domestication. For example, rice was first cultivated in the Yangtze River basin of East Asia in the early Neolithic. Sorghum was widely cultivated in sub-Saharan Africa during the early Neolithic, while peanuts, squash, and cassava were domesticated in the Americas.
Domestication
All of the so-called founder crops are native to Southwest Asia and were domesticated in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period. Many other crops were domesticated in West Asia during the Neolithic, as well as elsewhere, independently, in later periods.
Cereals
The staple crops of Neolithic agriculture were cereals, which could be easily cultivated in open fields, have a high nutritional value, and can be stored for long periods of time. The most important were two species of wheat, namely emmer (Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccum) and einkorn (Triticum monococcum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare), which were amongst the first species to be domesticated in the world. The wild progenitors of all three crops are self-pollinating, which made them easier to domesticate.
Wild einkorn wheat (Triticum monococcum subsp. boeoticum) grows across Southwest Asia in open parkland and steppe environments. It comprises three distinct races, only one of which, native to Southeast Anatolia, was domesticated. The main feature that distinguishes domestic einkorn from wild is that its ears will not shatter without pressure, making it dependent on humans for dispersal and reproduction. It also tends to have wider grains. Wild einkorn was collected at Epipalaeolithic sites such as Tell Abu Hureyra () and Mureybet (), but the earliest archaeological evidence for the domestic form comes from the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of southern Turkey, at Çayönü, Cafer Höyük, and possibly Nevalı Çori. Genetic evidence indicates that it was domesticated in multiple places independently.
Wild emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccoides) is less widespread than einkorn, favouring the rocky basaltic and limestone soils found in the hilly flanks of the Fertile Crescent. It is also more diverse, with domesticated varieties falling into two major groups: hulled or non-shattering, in which threshing separates the whole spikelet; and free-threshing, where the individual grains are separated. Both varieties probably existed in the Neolithic, but over time free-threshing cultivars became more common. Genetic studies have found that, like einkorn, emmer was domesticated in southeastern Anatolia, but only once. The earliest secure archaeological evidence for domestic emmer comes from the early PPNB levels at Çayönü, , where distinctive scars on the spikelets indicated that they came from a hulled domestic variety. Slightly earlier finds have been reported from Tell Aswad in Syria, , but these were identified using a less reliable method based on grain size.