Wheat (Triticum sp.)

Wheat is one of the most cultivated cereals in the world today. The domestication processes leading to the formation of wheat groups in the Near East during the Neolithic are complex and remain to be better understood. Free-threshing wheats (bread and durum wheats) are the represented wheats in the Arabian Peninsula since the Bronze Age.

Wheat is the most important cereal in the Old World and one of the founding crops of Neolithic agriculture in the Near East. Today, it is the second most cultivated cereal in the world along with rice. It is widely cultivated in the Mediterranean area, as well as in temperate and subtropical zones. This crop provides a superior nutritive value to other cereals with its starch (60-80 %) and proteins (8-14 %). Wheat grains (botanically, caryopses) are usually pounded for flour, mostly for making bread and pasta owing to the properties of gluten proteins (Zohary et al. 2012: 23–33).

The domestication processes from several wild species lead to the formation of different wheat complexes. However, it is still difficult to fully understand the history of domestication processes. Two main types have been defined: hulled wheats with inner glumes (lemma and palea) adhering to the grains even after threshing, and thus requiring dehusking before consumption; and free-threshing (naked) wheats with thinner and lighter lemma and palea removed during winnowing. Nowadays, most cultivated wheats are free-threshing types. The two main sub-species correspond to bread wheat (Triticum aestivum ssp. aestivum L.) for making leavened breads, and durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum (Desf.) Husn.) used for pasta and non-leavened bread. Hulled wheats correspond to primitive forms, cultivated today as relic crops, such as einkorn (Triticum monococcum ssp. monococcum L.), or others belonging to the same species as bread and durum wheats, such as emmer (Triticum turgidum ssp. diccocum (Schrank) Thell.) and spelt (Triticum aestivum ssp. spelta (L.) Thell.). Einkorn and emmer correspond to the first two wheats domesticated in the Near East from the 9th-8th millennia BCE. Indeed, emmer was the dominant wheat during the Neolithic period. Free-threshing wheats emerged through evolution and hybridization processes, before progressively supplanting hulled wheats (Cappers & Neef 2012: 291–319; Zohary et al 2012: 23–50). The archaeobotanical identification of hulled wheats is possible on the basis of grains and chaff elements (rachis, glume bases), whereas distinctions between free-threshing wheats can only be made based on morphological differences on rachis segments and glume bases (Fig. 1).

Archaeobotanical evidence of wheat in the [Arabian Peninsula](Arabia Geography and environment]) mostly concerns free-threshing types, such as bread wheat and tetraploid (durum-type) wheats, and in minor proportions, emmer. There is little evidence of other wheats (einkorn, Ethiopian wheat) (see Bouchaud et al. 2016, Charbonnier 2008, Dabrowski et al. 2024). They are represented by carbonized grains and chaff remains (rachis, glumes, lemmas), as well as earthen impressions in mudbrick architecture and potsherds. The most ancient findings date to the Bronze Age (3rd millennium BCE), notably in Eastern Arabia, where wheat was grown alongside date palms in the oasis agricultural systems of date palm gardens (Tengberg 2012). In this region, free-threshing wheats, in particular bread wheat, are attested (e.g., Kush, Mleiha, Qalʿat al-Bahrain, Saar, Tell Abraq), whereas few traces of emmer wheats have been discovered at Bronze and Iron Age sites (Hīlī 8, Rumayla). In Northwest Arabia, only durum wheat is attested from the Bronze Age until Antiquity, and few emmer rachis have been found (Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ, Taymāʾ). A great diversity of wheats has been identified in Southwest Arabia: as early as the Bronze Age, durum wheat, bread wheat, emmer and einkorn have been reported at several sites in the highlands of Yemen (Dhamār, Khawlān). During the 1st millennium BCE, emmer and bread wheat were still grown in the lowlands (Barāqish, Raybūn), alongside Ethiopian wheat. After that, two sites dated to Antiquity in the same region (al-Aḍlaʿ, Ẓafār) yielded einkorn, emmer, free-threshing and hulled wheats. However, a complete revision of the material from the region is needed to firmly reconstruct the history of wheat diffusion in Arabia.

Vladimir Dabrowski

References and suggested reading

• Bouchaud, C., 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.
• Charbonnier, J. 2008. L’agriculture en Arabie du Sud avant l’Islam. Chroniques yéménites 15: 1–28.
• 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.
• 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.