Who were the first farmers?   Live Science - September 15, 2023

The development of farming by Homo sapiens may be the most fundamental advance of our species. It forever changed the nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles that all humans had followed until that time, and the farming practices established by our ancient ancestors still shape agriculture around the world today, feeding billions of people. Farming also led to villages and then to specialized labor, and then to the advancements of arts and technologies. But when did farming start? And why?

Fluke Discovery of Ancient Farming Technique Could Stabilize Crop Yields   Science Alert - January 16, 2023
As climates around the world grow harsher and increasingly unpredictable, concerns are increasing over our world's food security. Already, yields of staple crops like maize and wheat are dropping in low-latitude tropical regions and in dry and drying regions such as African drylands and parts of the Mediterranean.

Ancient Mesopotamian discovery transforms knowledge of early farming   PhysOrg - January 11, 2022
Rutgers researchers have unearthed the earliest definitive evidence of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) in ancient Iraq, challenging our understanding of humanity's earliest agricultural practices. Overall, the presence of millet in ancient Iraq during this earlier time period challenges the accepted narrative of agricultural development in the region as well as our models for how ancient societies provisioned themselves.

Ancient DNA continues to rewrite corn's 9,000-year society-shaping history   PhysOrg - December 14, 2020
Some 9,000 years ago, corn as it is known today did not exist. Ancient peoples in southwestern Mexico encountered a wild grass called teosinte that offered ears smaller than a pinky finger with just a handful of stony kernels. But by stroke of genius or necessity, these Indigenous cultivators saw potential in the grain, adding it to their diets and putting it on a path to become a domesticated crop that now feeds billions. Despite how vital corn, or maize, is to modern life, holes remain in the understanding of its journey through space and time. Now, a team co-led by Smithsonian researchers have used ancient DNA to fill in a few of those gaps. A new study, which reveals details of corn's 9,000-year history, is a prime example of the ways that basic research into ancient DNA can yield insights into human history that would otherwise be inaccessible

Researchers trace the genetic history and diversity of wheat   PhysOrg - May 30, 2019
Without significant global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, Colombia will have 60 percent less land suitable for rice production by the 2050s

Colombia could lose 60% of land suitable for irrigated rice due to climate change   PhysOrg - May 30, 2019

Coastal strip in Brazil sheds new light on early farming   PhysOrg - September 4, 2018
Humans may have been cultivating plants on a narrow coastal strip in Brazil as far back as 4,800 years ago, according to a new study. An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of York, analysed the teeth and bones of ancient human remains found at the site in Southern Brazil. The results reveal that the individuals, who lived around 4,800 years ago, were eating a diet rich in carbohydrates, suggesting that they may have cultivated plants like yams and sweet potatoes.

The wheat code is finally cracked   PhysOrg - August 16, 2018
Today in the international journal Science, the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) published a detailed description of the genome of bread wheat, the world's most widely cultivated crop. This work will pave the way for the production of wheat varieties better adapted to climate challenges, with higher yields, enhanced nutritional quality and improved sustainability. The research article authored by more than 200 scientists from 73 research institutions in 20 countries presents the reference genome of the bread wheat variety Chinese Spring. The DNA sequence ordered along the 21 wheat chromosomes is the highest quality genome sequence produced to date for wheat. It is the result of 13 years of collaborative international research. A key crop for food security, wheat is the staple food of more than a third of the global human population and accounts for almost 20 percent of the total calories and protein consumed by humans worldwide, more than any other single food source. It also serves as an important source of vitamins and minerals.

Wheat gene map to help 'feed the world'   BBC - August 16, 2018
The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that wheat production needs to be increased by 60% by 2050 to feed the population, which by then will have grown to 9.6 billion. Much of this work is being carried out by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), based near Mexico City. It is an organization devoted to developing new varieties to boost production for farmers in some of the world's poorest countries. For decades CIMMYT has been trying to increase yields and stave off new strains of diseases by releasing new varieties created by traditional cross breeding. But the expected increase in heat waves caused by climate change has now made the development of varieties that need less water and tolerate higher temperatures their top priority, according to CIMMYT's head of wheat research, Dr Ravi Singh.

Dubai Will Be Home To the World's Biggest Vertical Farm   Smithsonian - July 16, 2018
An indoor megafarm might be the best way for the United Arab Emirates - a country that imports an estimated 85 percent of its foodÑto attempt to feed itself

Archaeologists discover bread that predates agriculture by 4,000 years   Science Daily - July 16, 2018
At an archaeological site in northeastern Jordan, researchers have discovered the charred remains of a flatbread baked by hunter-gatherers 14,400 years ago. It is the oldest direct evidence of bread found to date, predating the advent of agriculture by at least 4,000 years. The findings suggest that bread production based on wild cereals may have encouraged hunter-gatherers to cultivate cereals, and thus contributed to the agricultural revolution in the Neolithic period.

Agriculture initiated by indigenous peoples, not Fertile Crescent migration   PhysOrg - March 19, 2018
Small scale agricultural farming was first initiated by indigenous communities living on Turkey's Anatolian plateau, and not introduced by migrant farmers as previously thought, according to new research by the University ...

Entomologist confirms first Saharan farming 10,000 years ago   PhysOrg - March 17, 2018
By analyzing a prehistoric site in the Libyan desert, a team of researchers from the universities of Huddersfield, Rome and Modena & Reggio Emilia has been able to establish that people in Saharan Africa were cultivating and storing wild cereals 10,000 years ago. In addition to revelations about early agricultural practices, there could be a lesson for the future, if global warming leads to a necessity for alternative crops.

Neolithic farmers who built Stonehenge 5,000 years ago were almost completely wiped out by ÔBeaker peopleÕ from the continent   Daily Mail - February 21, 2018
Stonehenge has a proud place in Britain's history as one of the wonders of the world and the best-known prehistoric monument in Europe. But, according to a major new study, modern-day Britons are barely related to the ingenious Neolithic farmers who built the monument 5,000 years ago. Instead the British are related to the 'Beaker people' who travelled from modern-day Holland and all but wiped out Stonehenge's creators.

Neolithic farmers coexisted with hunter-gatherers for centuries in Europe   Science Daily - November 9, 2017
New research answers a long-debated question among anthropologists, archaeologists and geneticists: when farmers first arrived in Europe, how did they interact with existing hunter-gatherer groups? Did the farmers wipe out the hunter-gatherers, through warfare or disease, shortly after arriving? Or did they slowly out-compete them over time? The current study suggests that these groups likely coexisted side-by-side for some time before the farming populations slowly integrated local hunter-gatherers.

Desktop greenhouse allows people to collect data on potential crops to grow in space   PhysOrg - July 5, 2017
Just as agriculture revolutionized human settlements on Earth, it will also be a game changer in space. But first we need data. The Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative team, or MELiSSA for short, has been working for over 27 years to create ecosystems for astronauts. They are fine tuning how microrganisms, chemicals, catalysts, algae and plants interact to process waste and deliver unending supplies of oxygen, water and food. To help speed the process, the team is recruiting citizen scientists with the AstroPlant initiative. The idea was conceived at the Border Sessions conference in 2016 to ask home-gardeners, schools, urban farmers and other enthusiasts to nourish seeds selected by the MELiSSA team.

  How maize conquered the world   Daily Mail - November 17, 2016
A prehistoric corn cob dating back 5,310 years has shed fresh light on the domestication of the world's most popular cereal. Scientists have sequenced its complete DNA to show the maize grown in central Mexico was genetically more similar to its modern descendant than its wild ancestor. For example, the ancient maize already carried mutations responsible for making kernels soft, a common feature of today's corn.

DNA analyses reveal genetic identities of world's first farmers   Science Daily - July 26, 2016
Conducting the first large-scale, genome-wide analyses of ancient human remains from the Near East, an international team of scientists has illuminated the genetic identities and population dynamics of the world's first farmers. The study reveals three genetically distinct farming populations living in the Near East at the dawn of agriculture 12,000 to 8,000 years ago: two newly described groups in Iran and the Levant and a previously reported group in Anatolia, in what is now Turkey.

First farmers had diverse origins, DNA shows   BBC - July 15, 2016
Analysis of DNA from some of the world's first farmers shows that they had surprisingly diverse origins. Researchers sequenced genomes from ancient Neolithic skeletons uncovered in Iran. The results shed light on a debate over whether farming spread out from a single source in the region, or whether multiple farmer groups spread their technology across Eurasia. The switch from mobile hunting and gathering to the sedentary lifestyle of farming first occurred about 10,000 years ago in south-western Asia. After the last Ice Age, this new way of life spread rapidly across Eurasia, in one of the most important behavioral transitions in human history.

Prehistoric genomes from the world's first farmers in the Zagros mountains reveal different Neolithic ancestry for Europeans and South Asians   Science Daily - July 14, 2016
Populations in the ancient Fertile Crescent are the ancestors of modern day South Asians but not of Europeans, new research shows. The earliest farmers from the Zagros mountains in Iran, i.e., the eastern part of the Fertile Crescent, are neither the main ancestors of Europe's first farmers nor of modern-day Europeans. Researchers say that this came as a surprise.

Prehistoric genomes from the world's first farmers in the Zagros mountains reveal different Neolithic ancestry for Europeans and South Asians   Science Daily - July 14, 2016
Populations in the ancient Fertile Crescent are the ancestors of modern day South Asians but not of Europeans, new research shows. The earliest farmers from the Zagros mountains in Iran, i.e., the eastern part of the Fertile Crescent, are neither the main ancestors of Europe's first farmers nor of modern-day Europeans. Researchers say that this came as a surprise.

Farming was spread into and across Europe by people originating in modern-day Greece and Western Turkey   PhysOrg - June 6, 2016
Early farmers from across Europe have an almost unbroken trail of ancestry leading back to the Aegean. For most of the last 45,000 years Europe was inhabited solely by hunter-gatherers. About 8,500 years ago a new form of subsistence - farming - started to spread across the continent from modern-day Turkey, reaching central Europe by 7,500 years ago and Britain by 6,100 years ago. This new subsistence strategy led to profound changes in society, including greater population density, new diseases, and poorer health. Such was the impact of farming on how we live that scientists have debated for more than 100 years how it was spread across Europe. Many believed that farming was spread as an idea to European hunter-gatherers but without a major migration of farmers themselves.

New research shows same growth rate for farming, non-farming prehistoric people   PhysOrg - December 21, 2015
Prehistoric human populations of hunter-gatherers in a region of North America grew at the same rate as farming societies in Europe, according to a new radiocarbon analysis. Transitioning farming societies experienced the same rate of growth as contemporaneous foraging societies.

Scientists peg Anthropocene to first farmers   Science Daily - December 17, 2015
A new analysis of the fossil record shows that a deep pattern in the structure of plant and animal communities remained the same for 300 million years. Then, 6,000 years ago, the pattern was disrupted--at about the same time that people started farming in North America and populations rose. The research suggests that humans were the cause of this profound change in nature.

Ancestors of land plants were wired to make the leap to shore   PhysOrg - October 5, 2015
When the algal ancestor of modern land plants first succeeded in making the transition from aquatic environments to an inhospitable shore 450 million years ago, it changed the world by dramatically altering climate and setting the stage for the vast array of terrestrial life. But the genetic and developmental innovations plants used to make the leap to land have been enduring secrets of nature.

First evidence of farming in Mideast   PhysOrg - July 22, 2015
Until now, researchers believed farming was "invented" some 12,000 years ago in the Cradle of Civilization - Iraq, the Levant, parts of Turkey and Iran - an area that was home to some of the earliest known human civilizations. A new discovery by an international collaboration of researchers from Tel Aviv University, Harvard University, Bar-Ilan University, and the University of Haifa offers the first evidence that trial plant cultivation began far earlier - some 23,000 years ago. While full-scale agriculture did not develop until much later, our study shows that trial cultivation began far earlier than previously believed, and gives us reason to rethink our ancestors' capabilities.

Scientists create low-methane rice   PhysOrg - July 22, 2015
Scientists said Wednesday they had created a rice variety with starchier grains that emits less methane, a step towards the twin goals of feeding more people and curbing global warming. The cultivation of rice, a staple starch for billions of people, is also mankind's major emitter of methane, a potent climate-altering gas. Methane lives for a shorter time in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2), the most abundant greenhouse gas, but traps far more heat radiated from Earth's surface. Every year, rice paddies pump out 25 to 100 million tonnes of methane - the second-most important greenhouse gas at about 16 percent.

Archaeologists use new methods to explore move from hunting, gathering to farming   PhysOrg - July 21, 2015
One of the enduring mysteries of the human experience is how and why humans moved from hunting and gathering to farming. From their beginnings humans, like other mammals, depended on wild resources for sustenance. Then between 8,000 and 12,000 years ago, in a transitional event known as the Neolithic Revolution, they began to create and tend domestic ecosystems in various locations around the world, and agriculture was born. Despite decades of research into this major human advancement, scientists still don't know what propelled it.

Manure Used by Europe's First Farmers 8,000 Years Ago   Science Daily - July 16, 2013
A new study says Europe's first farmers used far more sophisticated practices than was previously thought. A research team led by the University of Oxford has found that Neolithic farmers manured and watered their crops as early as 6,000 BC. It had always been assumed that manure wasn't used as a fertilizer until Iron Age and Roman times. However, this new research shows that enriched levels of nitrogen-15, a stable isotope abundant in manure, have been found in the charred cereal grains and pulse seeds taken from 13 Neolithic sites around Europe.

Early humans in Iran were growing wheat 12,000 years ago   MSNBC - July 4, 2013
Stone tools and clay artifacts were collected from a site in the Zagros Mountains in Iran, where humans were cultivating plants 12,000 years ago. Among stone grinding tools, clay figures shaped like humans and animals and carved bone artifacts, archaeologists have harvested ancient grains from an early human settlement that are preserved 12,000 years. The finds suggest that generations of communities were earnestly experimenting with plant cultivation since the last Ice Age, and that agriculture, which laid the foundations for later civilizations, emerged concurrently in a number of locations that archaeologists recognize as the "Fertile Crescent" of the near east.

Ancient Egyptian Cotton Unveils Secrets of Domesticated Crop Evolution   Science Daily - April 3, 2012
Scientists studying 1,600-year-old cotton from the banks of the Nile have found what they believe is the first evidence that punctuated evolution has occurred in a major crop group within the relatively short history of plant domestication. The findings offer an insight into the dynamics of agriculture in the ancient world and could also help today's domestic crops face challenges such as climate change and water scarcity.

Study shows genetic rice breeding goes back 10,000 years   PhysOrg - June 8, 2011
A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - Masanori Yamasaki in Japan, describe how they analyzed the genomes of several types of rice and discovered that the lengths of the stems on the plants grew shorter over time as rice was first being domesticated, resulting in sturdier plants and increased grain output. They conclude that due to the type of mutant genes seen in the early plants that caused the shorter stems, intentional breeding of rice must have occurred as far back as 10,000 years ago.

Why the switch from foraging to farming?   PhysOrg - March 7, 2011
Thousands of years ago, our ancestors gave up foraging for food and took up farming, one of the most important and debated decisions in history. Generally speaking, when Dictyostelium discoideum amoebas run short of bacteria to eat in a patch of soil - presumably because the bacteria themselves are starving - the single-celled life-forms "start 'talking' to each other, and they gather together. When there're about a hundred thousand amoebas gathered together, then they form a fruiting body. The resulting stalk sticks up into the wind and releases spores carrying the amoebas - and, it turns out, a few bacterial "seeds" too.

Rare, unique seeds arrive at Svalbard Vault, as crises threaten world crop collections   PhysOrg - February 25, 2011
he Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV) celebrated its third anniversary today with the arrival of seeds for rare lima beans, blight-resistant cantaloupe, and progenitors of antioxidant-rich red tomatoes from Peru and the Galapagos Islands. The arrival of these collections, including many drought- and flood-resistant varieties, comes at a time when natural and man-made risks to agriculture have reinforced the critical need to secure all the world's food crop varieties.

Wheat's Genetic Code Cracked: Draft Sequence Coverage of Genome to Aid Global Food Shortage   Science Daily - August 27, 2010
The genome sequences released comprise five read-throughs of a reference variety of wheat and give scientists and breeders access to 95% of all wheat genes. This is among the largest genome projects undertaken, and the rapid public release of the data is expected to accelerate significantly the use of the information by wheat breeding companies.

The impact of the diffusion of maize to the Southwestern United States   PhysOrg - December 8, 2009
An international group of anthropologists offers a new theory about the diffusion of maize to the Southwestern United States and the impact it had. These people took advantage of improved moisture conditions by integrating a storable and potentially high-yielding crop into their broad-spectrum subsistence strategy.

Bolivians look to ancient farming   BBC - August 18, 2009
Poor farmers in the heart of Bolivia's Amazon are being encouraged to embrace the annual floods - by using a centuries-old irrigation system for their crops. They are experimenting with a sustainable way of growing food crops that their ancestors used. It could provide them with better protection against the extremes of climate change, reduce deforestation, improve food security and even promise a better diet. These are the bold aims of a two-year-old project being carried out by a non-governmental organisation near Trinidad, the capital of the department of Beni. The system is based on building "camellones" - raised earth platforms of anything up to 2m high, surrounded by canals. Constructed above the height of flood waters, the camellones can protect seeds and crops from being washed away. The water in the canals provide irrigation and nutrients during the dry season.

Anthropologist Finds Earliest Evidence Of Maize Farming In Mexico   Science Daily - April 10, 2007
Anthropologists have new evidence that ancient farmers in Mexico were cultivating an early form of maize, the forerunner of modern corn, about 7,300 years ago - 1,200 years earlier than scholars previously thought.

Ancient fig clue to first farming   BBC - June 2, 2006
Ancient figs found in an archaeological site in the Jordan Valley may represent one of the earliest forms of agriculture, scientists report. The carbonized fruits date between 11,200 and 11,400 years old. The US and Israeli researchers say the figs are a variety that could have only been grown with human intervention. The team says the find marks the point when humans turned from hunting and gathering to food cultivation.

Scotland: Monster mushroom found in field   BBC - June 26, 2004
A giant mushroom measuring four times the size of a football has been found by a couple in Aberdeenshire. The unusual find, discovered growing in a field, measures 3ft long and weighs about 9kg. Scientists have identified the mushroom as a gigantic puff-ball (Calvatia Gigantea), a variety of the fungi rarely found in Scotland. Ian Wakley, who found the mushroom, said he wanted to eat it but his wife Judith would not let him.

Farming began 23,000 years ago   BBC - June 23, 2004
Humans made their first tentative steps towards farming 23,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought. Stone Age people in Israel collected the seeds of wild grasses some 10,000 years earlier than previously recognized, experts say. These grasses included wild emmer wheat and barley, which were forerunners of the varieties grown today.

Korea: World's 'oldest' rice found - 15,000 years   BBC - October 21, 2003
Scientists have found the oldest known domesticated rice. The handful of 15,000-year-old burnt grains was discovered by archaeologists in Korea. Their age challenges the accepted view that rice cultivation originated in China about 12,000 years ago. The rice is genetically different from the modern food crop, which will allow researchers to trace its evolution.

Ancient Diet: Grains, Cooking, Farming, Fishing