On Mon, 24 Aug 1998 Bob Pastorio <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Automatic digest processor wrote:
> >
> > Has any source ever seriously examined the question of why humans would
> > have gravitated toward cereal grains as a primary crop for agriculture?  Do
> > these plants yield a superior caloric density or protein content to other
> > vegetation, such as tubers?
>
> I don't know of any research on the subject but would like to offer some
> speculations and consideration.
>
> Grains are little self-contained units that require no special storage
> conditions beyond a reasonable dryness.  They remove themselves from
> their husks with the most minimal of processing once dehydrated.

This is not true of the primitive wheats (e.g. spelt and emmer).  They
were not free-threshing like modern wheats (e.g. bread and durum wheats).
However this is an advantage for storage, as grain with its glume still
attached can be stored successfully at higher moisture contents than free
grain.  The Romans introduced bread wheat to Britain, but they also had to
introduce the corn-drier to process the grain before storage.

Does anyone know the processing and storage properties of primitve or
wild versions of the other major cereal crops (after wheat come rice,
maize, barley and sorghum)?

The rest of your argument seems sensible to me.  I would add that the
edible crop and the seed crop are one and the same for grains, but not
necessarily for tubers.  It may also be worth considering the location of
the transition to agriculture.  For the Near Eastern case, it is thought
that some sort of increasing pressure on resources, perhaps including
climatic changes, led grass harvesting peoples to become grass planting
ones in an environment where the choice of resources was limited by
climate and neighbouring populations.  My impression is that tubers have
been domesticated in environments which are not so marginal, and where
there is a greater diversity of food resources available, so that they are
not the initial crops to be domesticated.

Andrew

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 Dr. Andrew Millard                              [log in to unmask]
 Department of Archaeology, University of Durham,   Tel: +44 191 374 4757
 South Road, Durham. DH1 3LE. United Kingdom.       Fax: +44 191 374 3619
                      http://www.dur.ac.uk/~drk0arm/
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