Field Museum of Natural History
DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY
Chicago, 1922
Wheat
Mankind has undoubtedly always used the seed of wild grasses for food. Some of these, indeed, furnish very fair-sized grain and from such our cultivated cereals are unquestionably derived, though we cannot now always trace them to their respective wild prototypes. An example of such a large-grained wild grass is the recently discovered Wild Emmer of Palestine, which is considered by some to represent the original wild form from which certain of our cultivated wheats were derived.
Among the cereal grasses, wheat is by far the most important to the western world. It was first brought to this continent into Mexico by the Spaniards in 1520, later into New England and into Virginia by the early settlers. In Europe and in Asia it has been grown for thousands of years. In Europe it has been discovered in various places in remains of the later Stone Age. It has been grown about the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in Mesopotamia for at least five or six thousand years. It was cultivated in Babylonia and has been found in ancient Egyptian graves. To the far east it was grown in ancient China, to the south in India, and in Abyssinia in Africa. Its presence in several varieties even in Europe in pre-historic times and its ancient wide distribution would seem to be evidence that the beginning of its cultivation belongs to the earliest history of mankind. Unless the cultivation of wheat was undertaken independently in the various regions, its place of origin must be con-
[ 17 ]
