New evidence of Lateglacial cereal cultivation at Abu Hureyra on the Euphrates

By G. Hillman, R. Hedges, A. Moore, S. Colledge, P. Pettitt. 2001

254 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Hitherto, the earliest archaeological finds of domestic cereals in southwestern Asia have involved wheats and barleys dating from the beginning of the Holocene, 11–12000 calendar years ago. New evidence from the site of Abu Hureyra suggests that systematic cultivation of cereals in fact started well before the end of the Pleistocene by at least 13000 years ago, and that rye was among the first crops. The evidence also indicates that hunter-gatherers at Abu Hureyra first started cultivating crops in response to a steep decline in wild plants that had served as staple foods for at least the preceding four centuries. The decline in these wild staples is attributable to a sudden, dry, cold, climatic reversal equivalent to the ‘Younger Dryas’ period. At Abu Hureyra, therefore, it appears that the primary trigger for the occupants to start cultivating caloric staples was climate change. It is these beginnings of cultivation in the late Pleistocene that gave rise to the integrated grain-livestock Neolithic farming systems of the early Holocene.

Subfields: Anthropology, Atmospheric Science, Paleontology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/26c24ab36ff35bdb13d80fc299cf0948334d142c

How researchers see this paper

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In Anthropology

1. D. Fuller
2. S. Lev-Yadun
3. S. Abbo
4. A. Gopher
5. Robin G. Allaby
6. O. Bar‐Yosef
7. J. González-Urquijo
8. J. Gibaja

In Atmospheric Science

1. D. Fuller
2. O. Bar‐Yosef
3. S. Lev-Yadun

In Paleontology

1. D. Fuller
2. Robin G. Allaby
3. S. Abbo
4. G. Willcox
5. S. Lev-Yadun
6. A. Gopher
7. Ling Qin
8. O. Bar‐Yosef

Citations in the corpus

• Discriminating wild vs domestic cereal harvesting micropolish through laser confocal microscopy (2014, background): “However, some archaeobotanical evidence at Abu Hureyra would indicate that domestic cereals already existed in the 11th millennium cal BC in the Euphrates region (Hillman et al., 2001).”
• Cultivation and domestication had multiple origins: arguments against the core area hypothesis for the origins of agriculture in the Near East (2011, background): “This has been approached statistically (Colledge 1998, 2001), as progressive assemblage change (Hillman et al. 2001) and cautiously by excluding any potential gathered food plants (Willcox 2011; Willcox et al.”
• Declining oaks, increasing artistry, and cultivating rice: the environmental and social context of the emergence of farming in the Lower Yangtze Region (2010, background): “BC (e.g. Moore and Hillman 1992; Hillman et al. 2001; Bar-Yosef 2003; Harris 1998; 2003).”
• Advances in plant food processing in the Near Eastern Epipalaeolithic and implications for improved edibility and nutrient bioaccessibility: an experimental assessment of Bolboschoenus maritimus (L.) Palla (sea club-rush) (2008, background): “, when CO2 conditions had become more favourable for C3 plants (Hillman et al. 2001).”
• Early Holocene cultivation before domestication in northern Syria (2008, background): “One of his arguments was that the harsh climatic conditions of the Younger Dryas would have not allowed wild stands to grow in the region (Hillman et al. 2001).”
• SEED DISPERSAL AND CROP DOMESTICATION: SHATTERING, GERMINATION AND SEASONALITY IN EVOLUTION UNDER CULTIVATION (2009, background): “But if weed flora evidence for pre-domestication cultivation is accepted for Abu Hureyra and Mureybit (Colledge, 1998; Hillman et al., 2001; Willcox et al., 2008) and assumed to be continuous with later cultivation and domestication, then it should be”
• Climatic Fluctuations and Early Farming in West and East Asia (2011, methodology): “This is evident in the presence of arable weeds, reflecting increased sedentism, and it emerges in Tel Qaramel west of the Euphrates valley, Mureybet, and Jerf el-Ahmar (Willcox, Buxó, and Herveux 2009; Willcox, Fornite, and Herveux 2008).”
• Water management and labour in the origins and dispersal of Asian rice (2009, background): “For example, there have been no analyses of weed floras that might indicate cultivation, as has been documented in the Near East (Colledge 1998; Hillman et al 2001; Willcox et al. 2008).”
• Domestication as innovation: the entanglement of techniques, technology and chance in the domestication of cereal crops (2010, background): “The very beginnings of cultivation, before there have been any appreciable morphological changes, may be inferred from weed flora, as has been argued for the Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) (Colledge 1998; Willcox et al. 2008) – and perhaps earlier at Epipalaeolithic Abu Hureyra (Hillman et”
• Plant Domestication and Crop Evolution in the Near East: On Events and Processes (2012, background): “…Weiss et al., 2006 (oats); Melamed et al., 2008 (Vicia peregrina); Willcox et al., 2009 (rye)], driven by a combination of environmental (e.g., Hillman et al., 2001; BarYosef, 2004, 2009; Gepts, 2004; Allaby et al., 2008a; Laland and O’Brien, 2010), and cultural factors, mediated by human…”
• Contrasting Patterns in Crop Domestication and Domestication Rates: Recent Archaeobotanical Insights from the Old World (2007, background): “11 500 to 9800 BC (Bar-Yosef, 1998, 2003; Harris, 1998; Hillman et al., 2001; Byrd, 2005).”