快猫短视频

AGRICULTURE wasn鈥檛 invented in the Jordan Valley, but 800 kilometres to the
north on the borders of Syria and Turkey, say Israeli scientists. Recent genetic
evidence from wheat and lentils shows that edible plants were first domesticated
somewhere within a 200-kilometre circle on the upper reaches of the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers.

Some researchers have proposed the Jordan Valley and adjacent areas as the
鈥渃radle of agriculture鈥�, says Simcha Lev-Yadun of Israel鈥檚 Agriculture Research
Organization. But Lev-Yadun and his colleagues have a different theory.

They say that recent evidence shows that all seven crops important to ancient
civilisations鈥攅inkorn wheat, emmer wheat, barley, lentils, peas, chickpeas
and bitter vetch鈥攐riginated in a small area on the borders of modern Syria
and Turkey. And the latest research shows that modern-day cultivated lentils
derived from a wild variety found only within this area. This fits well with
archaeological evidence, which shows agricultural technology diffusing from the
north to the south, Lev-Yadun says.

鈥淭he evidence is consistent with their thesis,鈥� says Jerrold Davis, a plant
biologist at Cornell University, Ithaca. But he cautions that some crops might
have been domesticated from wild varieties living in regions from which they
have since disappeared.