Domestication and Evolution of Ancient Wheats

Abstract

Wheat is a revolutionary staple crop plant that changed the human lifestyle from hunter-gatherer to sedentary, by its domestication about 10,000 years ago in the Middle East. Spontaneously, this revolution spread out all over the world in the form of agriculture. Archaeological remains have helped us to understand the domestication and evolution of wheat. Eight crop plants, including wheat, were domesticated in the Middle East; therefore, it is called the cradle of agriculture. A mutation event changed the brittle rachis of wild wheats (Triticum boeoticum and Triticum dicoccoides) to the non-brittle rachis of domesticated hulled wheats (Triticum monococcum ssp. monococcum and Triticum dicoccon Schrank, respectively), which were the first common crop plants of agriculture until the early Bronze Age. Other mutation events also occurred in the genes controlling the free-threshing trait of hulled wheats, giving rise to wheats (Triticum durum and Triticum spelta) with free-threshed higher-yield naked grains. Early farmers’ agricultural practices and natural selection have developed wheat landraces with high genetic diversity, high quality traits, and resistance to biotic and abiotic stress factors to be used to improve modern wheat varieties.