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A stratigraphic sequence from Ghar-e Boof, a cave site in Iran, covering a period of c. 80,000–30,000 BP and containing more than 20,000 seed and chaff remains, allows a detailed study of the use of annual seed species of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer groups and its evolution under the influence of changing environmental conditions. Taxonomic changes in the archaeobotanical assemblage and the stable carbon isotope data of pistachio support a considerable change in environmental conditions over the sequence from MIS 5a to MIS 3. The exceptional dominance of wild ancestors of modern crop species, including glume wheat and large-seeded legumes from Middle Palaeolithic layers AH VI (OSL ranges 72–81 ka BP), coincides broadly with the transition from MIS 5a to MIS 4. With the beginning of MIS 4 these taxa are strongly reduced, corresponding with a strong decrease in global CO2 concentrations and in the Δ13C values of Pistacia khinjuk/atlantica from the site. Wild glume wheat completely disappears after Middle Palaeolithic AH Vb and never reappears at the site. We hypothesize that the Middle Palaeolithic niche that allowed the harvesting and consumption of wild cereals and legumes ended with a destabilization of the vegetation in early MIS 4. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reconstructing the domestication process of cereals is a basic requirement for the understanding of the Early Neolithic in the Near East and how agriculture emerged. Although there is general agreement on the criteria of differentiating wild from domesticated cereals, their application to material from aceramic Neolithic sites is problematic for reasons of preservation and diversity of early transitional chaff remains. In the present study we established an identification key for the distinction of wild and domestic emmer wheat ( Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccoides / dicoccum ). General morphological analyses as well as experimental charring and measurements on wild and domestic emmer from the Fertile Crescent were conducted to track the main features that distinguish the two forms. Wild emmer can be differentiated from domestic emmer using longitudinal sections through rachises. The scar morphology of wild emmer specimens with a rough upper abscission scar is distinct from domestic emmer. In addition, two of the measuring tracks distinguish between domestic emmer and its progenitor. These results were applied to archaeological specimens from the aceramic Neolithic site of Chogha Golan (Ilam Province, Iran), which was excavated in 2009 and 2010 by a team of the Tübingen Iranian Stone Age Research Project. The carbonized emmer remains dating to about 9800 BP comprise domestic-type and wild-type rachises, which is typical for cereal assemblages from aceramic Neolithic deposits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The beginnings of agriculture throughout the Fertile Crescent are still not completely understood, particularly at the eastern end of the Fertile Crescent in the area of modern Iran. Archaeobotanical samples from Epipalaeolithic/PPNA Körtik Tepe in southeastern Turkey and from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites of Chogha Golan and East Chia Sabz in south western Iran were studied in order to define the status of cultivation at these sites. Preliminary results show the presence of abundant wild progenitor species of crops at the Iranian sites before 10600 cal. b.p., and very few wild progenitor species at Körtik Tepe dated to 11700-11250 cal. b.p. The Iranian sites also indicate size increase of wild barley grain across a sequence of 400 years through either cultivation or changing moisture conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of Iran as a center of origin for domesticated cereals has long been debated. High stratigraphic resolution and rich archaeological remains at the aceramic Neolithic site of Chogha Golan (llam Province, present-day Iran) reveal a sequence ranging over 2200 years of cultivation of wild plants and the first appearance of domesticated-type species. The botanical record from Chogha Golan documents how the inhabitants of the site cultivated wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum) and other wild progenitor species of modern crops, such as wild lentil and pea. Wild wheat species (Triticum spp.) are initially present at less than 10% of total plant species but increase to more than 20% during the last 300 years of the sequence. Around 9800 calendar years before the present, domesticated-type emmer appears. The archaeobotanical remains from Chogha Golan represent the earliest record of long-term plant management in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As early as the 1950s the Zagros range in western Iran has been one of the main arenas for seeking the earliest villages and domestication of plants and animals in the eastern wing of the Fertile Crescent. Pioneering works of Robert Braidwood during the 1950s and early 1960s at a number of sites in Iraqi Kurdestan and the central Zagros region of western Iran, such as Karim Shahir, Jarmo, Asiab, Sarab, not only produced the first information on the Neolithic of this region, but also motivated a series of fieldworks targeting the Neolithic period in western Iran during the 1960s–1970s (e.g., Braidwood 1960). Excavations at the early Neolithic sites of Guran, Ganj Darreh, Abdul Hosein, Ali Kosh, and Chogha Sefid during these two decades contributed significantly to a clearer picture of the Neolithic of the Zagros region and suggested this region as one possible center of early domestication in the Near East (e.g., Hole, Flannery, and Neely 1969). Although this status of the Zagros was partly eclipsed because of both a two-decade hiatus in Neolithic research during 1980s–1990s and the concurrent, increasing investigations on the early Neolithic in the Levant and southeastern Anatolia, it seems that the Zagros is regaining its position regarding early domestication and the initial stages of the Neolithic way of life in the Fertile Crescent through the crucial information obtained from recent excavations at some early Holocene sites, such as Chogha Golan and Sheikhi Abad (e.g., Matthews, Matthews, and Homamadifar 2013 ; Riehl et al. 2015). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a letter to the editor in response to the article "Emergence of agriculture in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains of Iran," by Simone Riehl and team in the July 5, 2013 issue, as well as a reply by the authors.