Early farmers took time to tame wheat
By Bruce Bower
Domesticated varieties of wheat emerged gradually in the prehistoric Near East over a roughly 3,000-year span, a new investigation suggests.
Ken-ichi Tanno of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto, Japan, and George Willcox of the National Center for Scientific Research in Berrias, France, examined 804 wheat-ear remnants recovered at four ancient villages in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria.