Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.)

Barley was one of the earliest domesticated crops in the Near East where it is widely cultivated today for its resilience. This rustic cereal is represented by two-rowed and six-rowed forms, as well as hulled and naked cultivars. Hulled and six-rowed forms are the most frequent forms in the Arabian Peninsula since the Bronze Age.

Barley was one of the first domesticated crops in the Near East. This winter and spring cereal is considered to be rustic because it can withstand drought conditions, poor soils and salinity. This explains why it is more widely grown in the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin than other cereals, such as wheats. It is an important component of the human diet, although it is less appreciated than wheat, and is a crucial fodder resource. It has also been used for beer fermentation since at least the 4th millennium BCE in the Near East (Zohary et al. 2012: 51–53).

This cereal was domesticated from the wild species H. spontaneum (K. Koch) Thell, dispersed throughout the eastern Mediterranean basin and Southwest Asia, from the 9th-8th millennia BCE in the Near East. Spikes are composed of triplets of spikelets (flower part of the Poaceae family), disposed alternately along the rachis (constitutive element of the spike). This crop is represented by two-rowed forms (H. vulgare subsp. distichon (L.) Körn), in which the central spikelet of each triplet is hermaphrodite and fertile, while the lateral ones are male. Therefore, only one grain is available for each triplet. After domestication, six-rowed forms (Hordeum vulgare subsp. hexastichon (L.) Čelak) emerged. All the spikelets were hermaphrodite and fertile; consequently, each triplet bears three grains. All the wild forms and most domesticated ones are hulled, that is, the inner glumes (lemma and palea) remain attached to the grains and require another processing stage before human consumption. During domestication, naked forms with lighter inner glumes to be removed during winnowing were also developed (Cappers & Neef 2012: 273-285; Zohary et al. 2012: 51-59). Barley is mostly represented in archaeological sites by grains (botanically, caryopses) and rachis segments. Hulled grains are spindle-shaped with more or less pointed ends, and longitudinal surface ridges or even at times still-preserved inner glumes (Fig. 1). The identification of six-rowed forms is based on the presence of asymmetrical grains from lateral spikelets and the available space for the latter on rachis nodes (Jacomet 2006).

Barley is one of the most represented cereals in the Arabian Peninsula. Evidence of barley goes back to the Bronze Age (3rd-2nd millennia BCE) in the form of impressions of grains and rachis in mudbrick architecture and potsherds, as well as carbonized items (e.g., Taymāʾ, Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ for North-western Arabia; Dhamār, Khawlān, al-Aḍlaʿ, Hajar ibn Ḥumayd, Barāqish, Ẓafār for South-western Arabia; Hīlī 8, Kush, Mleiha, Qalʿat al-Bahrain, Saar, Tell Abraq for Eastern Arabia) (for detailed bibliography, see Bouchaud et al. 2016, Dabrowski et al. 2024). Discoveries correspond almost exclusively to hulled barley; only one naked barley grain has been found on the Hellenistic site of Faylakā and the late antique site of Ẓafār. Two-rowed and six-rowed forms have been observed although the latter is generally more frequent. The introduction of barley as a domesticate, alongside wheats, contributed to the emergence of oasis agrosystems in eastern Arabia where cereals are grown alongside date palms (Tengberg 2012). Barley is consistently found during the following periods, often as a dominant crop.

Vladimir Dabrowski

References and suggested reading

• Bouchaud, Ch., V. Dabrowski, M. Tengberg 2016. État de la recherche archéobotanique en péninsule arabique. Routes de l'Orient H-S 2: 21–37.
• Cappers, R.T.J., R. Neef 2012. Handbook of plant palaeoecology (Groningen archaeological studies, 19). Groningen: Barkuis.
• Dabrowski, V., C. Bouchaud, X. Desormeau, L. Herveux, E. Chambraud, S.E. Ryan & M. Tengberg, 2024. A tale of new crops in the arid Arabian Peninsula oasis from antiquity to the early Islamic period. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany: Special Issue "Moving Plants" (2024). DOI: 10.1007/s00334-023-00976-4.
• Jacomet, S. 2006. Identification of cereal remains from archaeological sites. Unpublished manuscript.
• Rösch, M. & E. Fischer 2013. Chapter 11. Charred Plant Remains, in P. Yule (ed.) Late Antique Zafar, Capital of Himyar (Abhandlungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft. Herausgegeben von der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, Band 29): 187–194. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
• Tengberg, M. 2012. Beginnings and early history of date palm garden cultivation in the Middle East. Journal of Arid Environments, Ancient Agriculture in the Middle East 86: 139–147. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaridenv.2011.11.022.
• Zohary, D., M. Hopf, E. Weiss 2012. Domestication of plants in the old world the origin and spread of domesticated plants in south-west Asia, Europe, and the Mediterranean Basin. 4th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.