page_title: Wheat
section_title: Origin and history
hierarchical_section_title: Wheat / Origin and history
caption_attribution_description: Ελληνικά: Γυναίκα η οποία συλλέγει σιτάρι, στην περιοχή Ρέϊζεν, Μάντια Πραντές, Ινδία. हिन्दी: महिला कटाई गेहूं, रायसेन जिले, मध्य प्रदेश, भारत. English: Woman harvesting wheat, Raisen district, Madhya Pradesh, India. Français&#160;: Femme moissonnant le blé, district de Raisen, Madhya Pradesh, Inde. Deutsch: Frau bei der Weizenernte, Bezirk Raisen, Madyha Pradesh, Indien.
context_page_description: Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain which is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus Triticum; the most widely grown is common wheat. The archaeological record suggests that wheat was first cultivated in the regions of the Fertile Crescent around 9600 BCE. Botanically, the wheat kernel is a type of fruit called a caryopsis.
  Wheat is grown on more land area than any other food crop. World trade in wheat is greater than for all other crops combined. In 2017, world production of wheat was 772 million tonnes, with a forecast of 2019 production at 766 million tonnes, making it the second most-produced cereal after maize. Since 1960, world production of wheat and other grain crops has tripled and is expected to grow further through the middle of the 21st century. Global demand for wheat is increasing due to the unique viscoelastic and adhesive properties of gluten proteins, which facilitate the production of processed foods, whose consumption is increasing as a result of the worldwide industrialization process and the westernization of the diet.
  Wheat is an important source of carbohydrates.
context_section_description: Cultivation and repeated harvesting and sowing of the grains of wild grasses led to the creation of domestic strains, as mutant forms ('sports') of wheat were preferentially chosen by farmers. In domesticated wheat, grains are larger, and the seeds (inside the spikelets) remain attached to the ear by a toughened rachis during harvesting. In wild strains, a more fragile rachis allows the ear to easily shatter and disperse the spikelets. Selection for these traits by farmers might not have been deliberately intended, but simply have occurred because these traits made gathering the seeds easier; nevertheless such 'incidental' selection was an important part of crop domestication. As the traits that improve wheat as a food source also involve the loss of the plant's natural seed dispersal mechanisms, highly domesticated strains of wheat cannot survive in the wild.
  Archaeological analysis of wild emmer indicates that it was first cultivated in the southern Levant, with finds dating back as far as 9600 BCE. Genetic analysis of wild einkorn wheat suggests that it was first grown in the Karacadag Mountains in southeastern Turkey. Dated archeological remains of einkorn wheat in settlement sites near this region, including those at Abu Hureyra in Syria, suggest the domestication of einkorn near the Karacadag Mountain Range. With the anomalous exception of two grains from Iraq ed-Dubb, the earliest carbon-14 date for einkorn wheat remains at Abu Hureyra is 7800 to 7500 years BCE.
  Remains of harvested emmer from several sites near the Karacadag Range have been dated to between 8600 (at Cayonu)  and 8400 BCE (Abu Hureyra), that is, in the Neolithic period. With the exception of Iraq ed-Dubb, the earliest carbon-14 dated remains of domesticated emmer wheat were found in the earliest levels of Tell Aswad, in the Damascus basin, near Mount Hermon in Syria. These remains were dated by Willem van Zeist and his assistant Johanna Bakker-Heeres to 8800 BCE. They also concluded that the settlers of Tell Aswad did not develop this form of emmer themselves, but brought the domesticated grains with them from an as yet unidentified location elsewhere.
  The cultivation of emmer reached Greece, Cyprus and Indian subcontinent by 6500 BCE, Egypt shortly after 6000 BCE, and Germany and Spain by 5000 BCE.  "The early Egyptians were developers of bread and the use of the oven and developed baking into one of the first large-scale food production industries." By 4000 BCE, wheat had reached the British Isles and Scandinavia. About two millennia later it reached China.
  The oldest evidence for hexaploid wheat has been confirmed through DNA analysis of wheat seeds, dating to around 6400-6200 BCE, recovered from Çatalhöyük. The first identifiable bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) with sufficient gluten for yeasted breads has been identified using DNA analysis in samples from a granary dating to approximately 1350 BCE at Assiros in Macedonia.
  From Asia, wheat continued to spread across Europe. In the British Isles, wheat straw (thatch) was used for roofing in the Bronze Age, and was in common use until the late 19th century.
caption: Woman harvesting wheat, Raisen district, Madhya Pradesh, India
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