[...]... until the present day, and beyond into the medium-term future In Part I, People and plants: two hundred millennia of coevolution, the three chapters are focussed mainly on the development of humankind from the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa and its subsequent spread around the world The interactions of early humans with the animals and plants upon which they depended were greatly affected by the. .. of climatic and social change, the focus returns to humankind, and particularly the development of the early farming-based cultures that went on to create the dominant agrourban societies of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas The first two chapters describe the emergence of crops in various parts of the world over several millennia during the early to mid part of the Neolithic period The decidedly... sort’ of plants, that is plants that lent themselves to domestication due to their genetic make-up People would also have needed to be very familiar with such plants; for example what they looked like, where they grew, when they set seed, what else ate them or competed with them, and so on They would have needed the right technologies for harvesting and processing of the edible parts of the plants. .. was the large-grained cereals that were the most favoured candidates for cultivation as 3 4 PEOPLE AND PLANTS: ONE HUNDRED MILLENNIA OF COEVOLUTION staple crops The most obvious examples are rice, wheat, and maize; these three plants were among the earliest domesticates and are still by far the most important crops grown across the world, supplying well over two-thirds of human calorific needs The. .. endured by women in hunter–gatherer groups might be minimized by the establishment of long-term base camps where small children could be left with carers, such as siblings and grandmothers, while their mothers foraged in the locality.10 This highlights the importance of the unusually high postmenopausal longevity in humans that is the basis of the so-called ‘grandmother hypothesis’, as favoured by many... Some idea of the efficiency of a hunter–gathering lifestyle comes from a well-known study of contemporary !Kung Bushmen from the Kalahari Desert It has been estimated that these people only spend one-third of their time (or 2.3 days per week) in food gathering; for the rest of the week they are free to indulge in other pursuits.14 Over the millennia, the !Kung have acquired an enormous amount of detailed... botanical knowledge about each of the many dozens of different food plants that form a regular part of their diet Some of these plants would be amenable to more systematic and intensive cultivation, should the people wish it The !Kung are also well aware, from observation of their farming neighbours, of the methodology of crop cultivation As the !Kung also know, parts of their home range might sometimes... one of the founder crops in China Vegetation patterns in mid-Holocene and modern Africa Pearl millet: one of the founder crops in Africa Central European Linearbandkeramik community, 7500–6400 BP Mesoamerica: home of maize farming and the milpa system Chinampas: the ‘floating gardens’ of the Aztecs Hohokam village and agricultural hinterland in Colorado The Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age The. .. at the onset of the Upper (or late) Palaeolithic, tools became smaller, more intricate, and much more diverse, and people created increasingly elaborate art forms The final phase of the Palaeolithic (generally known as the Epipalaeolithic in the Near East), lasted from the end of the last major glaciation c 18,000 BP until the end of the Younger Dryas c 11,600 BP This period marked the beginning of the. .. Beginnings of agriculture 185 Dadiwan, Yangshao, Longshan, and Qijia cultures: 8000 to 4000 BP The collapse of c 4000 BP 186 Rice farming in southern China 187 Evolution of agrourban cultures: III Africa, Europe, and the Americas Introduction Africa The Sahara 190 The Great Drought of the mid-Holocene 191 The Nile Valley 195 The rest of Africa 196 Europe Linearbandkeramik cultures: 7500 BP and beyond The . class="bi x0 y0 w0 h1" alt="" People, Plants, and Genes This page intentionally left blank People, Plants, and Genes The Story of Crops and Humanity Denis J. Murphy 1 3 Great Clarendon Street,. chapters of Part II deal specifically with the genetics of our major crops, and the ways in which their unusual genomic architecture, espe- cially the clustering of certain genes in a few chro- mosomal. Europe, and the Americas. The first two chapters describe the emergence of crops in various parts of the world over several millennia during the early to mid part of the Neolithic period. The decidedly