When and where and did humans first start eating cereal crops like wheat and barley?

Question

Links would be nice.

Answer 1

The Pulitizer Prize winning book, Guns Germs and Steel, by Jerrod Diamond discussed this subject extensively.  He talked about how certain desert plants as wheat and barley were suitable for domestication.  Because they lived in a harsh environment, the seeds of wheat and barley were large and therefore relatively easily accessible to humans harvesting.  Humans  theoretically began to be domesticated over 10,000 years ago.  His discussion on the evolutionary aspects of the domestication of crops was very interesting.

Answer 2

Don't know if this helps.

Eating wheat as one does nuts in its raw state, I suppose, does not count...it could have happened anytime.

Wheat [whole/pounded] is generally cooked by boiling/baking ...this needed fire and some pottery. Since baking in ovens would have developed later, I suppose it was first eaten in a boiled state .

Wheat and barley on the other hand, would have fermented in moist/wet conditions....ie brews[soups] without boiling.

Hope I helped in giving some 'links'.

Answer 3

I'd be surprised if we knew when humans first started EATING grains. How could we, when only a very little bit of all we've done has been found -- even of what we did that COULD still be found.

I mean, there were humans doing their thing. Most of the evidence of what they did is gone; of what still exists, we've found relatively little.

There's also no reason to think grain eating happened first in one place, then spread. Maybe. Or maybe different groups in different places did it independently.

Presumably we ate grain before we started to grow it -- though for how long, or how it was we discovered it was good to eat is impossible to say now.

I don't recall if this site discusses this, but it might (some links are to free articles, others to "subscribers only" stuff):

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/bein...

Answer 4

generally the fertile crescent (modern day Iraq) is considered to be where we started large scale agriculture

Answer 5

I know in the caucases(is this the correct spelling?) going back more than 2000 years they used both to make alcohol.

Answer 6

thousands of years ago. People all over the world independently invented bread, a more nutritious, tasty way to eat grain.

Answer 7

I believe they would have first eaten cereal crops as hunter gatherers, whenever they would come across grains growing wild during the season when they were ripe. Agriculture first started about 9500BC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture...

Answer 8

This started mostly in the Middle East where farming originated, in places like Catal Huyuk (Modern day Turkey) and in Babylon (Modern day Iraq). So basically cereal crops started growing next to large urban centers which needed food fast.

Answer 9

South east Turkey gets mentioned alot and 10,200 is  earliest site mentioned in this:

http://whyfiles.org/shorties/199wheat/

You might like this also:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/librar...

Thanks

Answer 10

Are they sure they didn't use it to make beer first?