The first steps towards agriculture occurred 11,000 years earlier than previously thought.
A community of hunter-gathers, living on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, were using what researchers are calling ‘proto-weeds’ – forerunners of domesticated plant types that would later become staples in early agriculture – in small-scale cultivation. Evidence of plants such as emmer wheat, barley, pea, lentil, almond, fig, grape, and olive were found at the site of Ohalo II, which dates to 23,000 years ago.
Prof. Ehud Weiss of Bar-Ilan University, one of the researchers for the study that found the proto-weed evidence, says, ‘These results show our ancestors were cleverer and more skilled than we had assumed. Although full-scale agriculture did not develop until much later, the attempt had already begun.’
This article appeared in issue 73 of Current World Archaeology. Click here to subscribe.