The archaeobotanical remains excavated at Iran's Zagros Mountains have yielded the earliest record of long-term plant management in this Asian country.In 2009, a team of German and Iranian archaeologists discovered the remains of a Stone Age farming community in the foothills of Zagros Mountains at an area known as Chogha Golan in Ilam province.
Led by Professor Nicholas Conard of the University of Tubingen, the study demonstrates a rare snapshot of a life dates back to 12,000 years ago when humans first started experimenting with farming.
Conard who is an expert on stone tools after finding some grains and seeds at the site sent them to his colleague Simone Riehl to recheck.
The analysis of the picked grains represented Iran as one of the agricultures origins at the era, according to a paper published in the journalScience.
"As most of the grains were pre-agricultural, they were cultivating what we consider wild progenitors of modern crops," Riehl reported.
Ancient mortars, stone figurines and grinding tools found in a large mound in the Zagros Mountains led the researches to be sure the people of the estimated period were grinding wheat and barley about 12,000 years ago.
The findings suggest a large social group lived there under fairly stable economic conditions, researchers believe.
The team also discovered sculpted clay objects, clay cones, depictions of animals and humans throughout the site.
The experts believe that the study sheds new light on understanding about the geographic origins of agriculture in the world.
The researchers had earlier suggested that agriculture arose at multiple places throughout the Fertile Crescent, the region of the Middle East believed to be the cradle of civilization.
"The thing that is most astounding is that the recent study extends the Fertile Crescent much farther east for the early agricultural sites, which are dated to 11,500 to 11,000 years ago," said George Willcox, an archaeologist at theCNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) in France.
By Press TV
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