Barley domestication
Domesticación de la cebada
- Date
- c. 8500 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Tell Aswad and Jericho, southern Levant, Syria / West Bank
- Credited to
- PPNB communities of the Levant
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Tough-rachis barley, more tolerant of drought and salinity than wheat, which becomes the staple cereal of Mesopotamia and the raw material for beer. Its hardiness made it possible to cultivate marginal land.
Genetic data indicate at least two centres: the southern Levant and the Zagros/Iran (with a possible contribution from the Tibetan Plateau).
What it led to
- Agriculture on the salinised plains of southern Mesopotamia
- Beer as food and as workers' wages
- Barley as a unit of value and payment in the earliest accounting systems
Built on
- Composite flint sicklec. 9500 BCE
- Cereal cultivation (pre-domestication)c. 9400 BCE
- Pre-domestication cereal cultivation
- Composite flint sickle
Made possible
- Canal irrigationc. 6000 BCE
- Barley beerc. 3500 BCE
- Commodity money (barley and silver standards)c. 3400 BCE
- Barley and silver commodity money