Archaeologists find possible evidence of earliest human agriculture
Source: The Guardian
Archaeologists find possible evidence of earliest human agriculture
Study of plant remains on shores of Sea of Galilee show crop cultivation may
have developed 23,000 years ago
Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem
Friday 24 July 2015 10.14 BST
Israeli archaeologists have uncovered dramatic evidence of what they believe are the earliest known attempts at agriculture, 11,000 years before the generally recognised advent of organised cultivation.
The study examined more than 150,000 examples of plant remains recovered from an unusually well preserved hunter-gatherer settlement on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel.
Previously, scientists had believed that organised agriculture in the Middle East, including animal husbandry and crop cultivation, had begun in the late Holocene period – around 12,000 BC – and later spread west through Europe.
The new research is based on excavations at a site known as Ohalo II, which was discovered in 1989 when the water level in the sea of Galilee dropped because of drought and excessive water extraction.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jul/24/archaeologists-find-possible-evidence-of-earliest-human-agriculture