Origins of World Crops and Livestock

Abstract

Millions of years ago, continental drift carried the Old World and New Worlds apart, splitting North and South America from Eurasia and Africa. As people spread across the world, they learned to use the resources available around them and became specialized hunters and gatherers. The first crops and livestock were domesticated in several rather diffuse areas including the Near East, India, China, Southeast Asia, Africa, Meso- and Central America, South America, and Northeastern North America. Humans began domesticating plants between 11,000 to 10,500 BP, about 1000 years before they began taming animals. The first livestock, sheep and goats, were likely domesticated somewhere to the north and east of the heartland of plant domestication. By 11,000 BCE, barley, wheat, goats, and sheep were domesticated in the region, followed by pigs and cattle by 10,000 BC, peas and lentils by 8000 BCE, olives in 5000 BCE, horses by 4000 BCE, and grapes in 3500 BCE. Most of the Near East founder crops (emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, barley, lentil, pea, and flax) traveled across Europe as a group, picking up other new domesticated crops along the way. Farming probably began independently in the New World, 1000–2000 years later than in the Old World. There was a relatively compact Mesoamerican center extending from today’s Mexico City to Honduras, while South American crops emerged in a broad area covering most of coastal and central South America. An independent center also arose in eastern North America. From the Mesoamerican center, a maize–bean–squash assemblage gradually moved northward, picking up sunflower and numerous other native species on the way, to eastern North America, where it was well established by 4500 BP.