Barley has been domesticated twice
During the so-called Neolithic Revolution around 8500 years ago, barley (Hordeum vulgare) was apparently successfully domesticated twice, independently of each other: in the Middle East - the Fertile Crescent - and in Central Asia.
With their genetic studies, Peter Morrell and Michael Clegg of the University of California at Irvine confirm previous suspicions that this crop had been successfully bred more than once. So far, this theory has been based on the history of the use of barley, which has been cultivated in southern Central Asia and the Near East for more than 8000 years. However, it was unclear whether it was bred there itself - Central Asia is within its natural range - or whether it was brought to the region along with other cereals by early traveling salesmen.
The two researchers now compared how frequently certain haplotypes occur in the genome of barley. Among other things, the mutation that led to the formation of unbreakable grains of grain was of crucial importance - they no longer snapped off the stalks so easily and were therefore easy to collect by hand. Depending on the subpopulation, however, the origin of this mutation is at different points in the genome. Numerical evaluations of the genetic material finally revealed two centers of origin, whereby the Central Asian breeding area could be in the western foothills of the Zagros Mountains in today's Iran, where 7000 to 8000 year old barley grains were found in Neolithic settlements.
The genetic studies also show that in Europe and America, according to the historical spread, barley varieties with Middle Eastern influences predominate today, while Central Asian influences predominate from Zagros to the Far East.
