On Thu, 11 Jul 2002 11:36:02 -0500, Matt Baker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Would you be willing and able to answer for me what are some of the
>vegetables/plants of your neighbor Baden-Wuerttemberg that early humans may
>have included in their diets?

If you're interested in ancient plant use and can read some german then
the best recommendation would be this book:
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3806211167/amadeusmegalithd/302-069530
4-8759212
(Sorry, the line split and you'll have to cut and paste from the second
line. or you go to
http://www.geocities.com/paleolix/books.htm and visit the first link of
"Deutsche Bücher" without a picture)

It's great. And a good scientific standard work. You learn about dozends of
plants which have been used in our area, where they come from, since which
time they have been used and where they stem from.
For example chicoree and radiccio salads stem from a beautiful blue flower
( chicory die Wegwarte   Lat.: Cichorium intybus).

Agriculture came to sw-germany area at about 4400BC (like whole middle
europe, advancing at about 5km per year). Called "Linearband".
It was only a few decades later they reached the coast and built there those
impressive and unbelievable megalith sites like gavrinis or Locmariaquer
(200 tons menhir).
The staples were wheat, lentils, barley and a european bean form (field
bean). They had flax and a lot of less frequent plants as well. They had
goats and sheep.
Rye and oats came later, in iron age (celtic). But they have still a much
longer history of use than "wheat", because:

Rye is not as long in use as wheat but the wheat of today is very very far
away from todays "turbo" wheat.
Roman "wheat" (far), like earlier wheat was Emmer or spelt.
Then there is einkorn. the closest relatives to far is the trigum durum
(durum wheat) which is used in italian pasta.

Todays wheat comes from a different plant, trigum aestivum, which
experienced a lot of breeding changes in the last 30 to 40 years.
Even today's living farmers report that todays wheat is very different from
the wheat 30 years ago.
Each resistency they "build into" the modern wheat is increasing the wheat
lectins for instance. For stupid dump mass agriculture, a plant optimized to
gather mineral nitrogen and make gluten out of it....

> This made me wonder whether my
>ancestors may have been more adapted to rye than to wheat.

And particularly in higher areas spelt was a bw mainstay.

Cheers

Amadeus