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Article: Wheat's DNA points to first farms. (researchers discover DNA fragments of the first cultivated einkorn, an ancient form of wheat, in southeastern Turkey)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- November 15, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Wheat today is synonymous with bread, but before it became the stuff of the staff of life, people grew an ancient form known as einkorn. The cultivation of einkorn, perhaps for eating as gruel, is thought to mark the origin of agriculture in the Old World.
"If you know where [einkorn] wheat was domesticated, you know where agriculture originated," says wheat geneticist Jan Dvorak of the University of California, Davis.
A new study aims to find those whereabouts. Sifting through and winnowing DNA fragments from wild and cultivated einkorn, a group of European researchers has traced the first sprouts of cultivate einkorn to a stretch of mountains in ...