More :
Digging for history in Turkey
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But what is new, and what makes this season's dig at Gobekli so climactic, is the quality of the latest finds - plus that mind-blowing thesis which links them to the Garden of Eden.
The thesis is this. Historians have long wondered if the Eden story is a folk memory, an allegory of the move from hunter-gathering to farming. Seen in this way, the Eden story describes how we moved from a life of relative leisure - literally picking fruit from the trees - to a harsher existence of ploughing and reaping.
And where did this change take place? Biologists now think the move to agriculture began in Kurdish Turkey. Einkorn wheat, a forerunner of the world's cereal species, has been genetically linked to here. Similarly, it now seems that wild pigs were first domesticated in Cayonu, just 60 miles from Gobekli.
This region also has Biblical connections, tying it closer to the Eden narrative. Muslims believe that Sanliurfa, a nearby city, is the Old Testament city of Ur. Harran, a town down the road, is mentioned in Genesis twice.
Even the topography of Gobekli Tepe is 'correct'. The Bible describes rivers descending from Paradise. Gobekli Tepe sits in the 'fertile crescent' between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The Bible also mentions mountains surrounding Eden. From the brow of Gobekli's hills you can see the Taurus range.
But how does this intoxicating
notion link to the architecture of Gobekli, and those astonishing finds?
From :
Wheat Domestication
The Origins of Wheat
Wheat is important to me.
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By K. Kris Hirst, About.com
There are many kinds of wheat in the world today. The two most common are common wheat, Triticum aestivum, also known as bread wheat and accounting for some 95% of all the consumed wheat in the world today; and durum wheat T. turgidum ssp. durum, which is that used in pasta and semolina products.
Origins of Wheat
The origins of our modern wheat, according to genetics, are found in the Karacadag mountain region of southeastern Turkey. There, some 10,000 years ago or so, two types of wheat were domesticated: einkorn or
Triticum monococcum and emmer (reported both as
T. araraticum and
T. turgidum ssp. dicoccoides). Spelt,
T. spelta, and
T. timopheevii were ancient forms of wheat developed by the late Neolithic, neither of which have much of a market today.
The main differences between the wild forms of wheat and domesticated wheat are that domesticated forms have larger seeds and a non-shattering
rachis. When wild wheat is ripe, the rachis--the stem that keeps the wheat shafts together--shatters so that the seeds can disperse themselves. But that naturally useful brittleness doesn't suit humans, who prefer to wait until the wheat is ripe to harvest it, and so, the theory goes anyway, selected wheats with rachis that didn't become brittle at harvest time.
Wheat in Archaeology
Recent studies in wheat origins include a report of a field experiment on the yield potential of the various forms of wheat; a study on the genetic propensity of wheat to dynamically react to bottlenecks by generating new variations; and a genetic study attempting to discriminate the 'new wheat' of the late Neolithic/Bronze Age,
T. timopheevii from emmer wheat.
Archaeological evidence for domesticated wheat has been found at several sites in the Fertile Crescent, sites such as
Abu Hureyra (Syria),
Jericho (West Bank), and
Cayönü (Turkey). The oldest evidence for both einkorn and emmer wheats found to date was at Abu Hureyra, in occupation layers dated to 9600 years ago.
Sources
This article on the domestication of wheat is a part of the About.com Guide to Plant Domestications, and part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.