CONTENTS Foreword Preface Contributors Biography of J.R. Harlan Introduction J.R. Harlan Part 1 CENTERS OF ORIGINS OF CROP PLANTS AND AGRICULTURE 1.1Back to Vavilov: Why Were Plants Domesticated in Some Areas and Not in Others? J.G. Hawkes 1.2Vavilov’s Theories of Crop Domestication in the Old Mediterranean Area A.A. Filatenko, A. Diederichsen and K. Hammer 1.3Archaeobotanical Evidence for the Beginnings of Agriculture in South-West Asia G. Willcox 1.4Syrian Origins of Safflower Production: New Discoveries in the Agrarian Prehistory of the Habur Basin J. McCorriston Part 2 NEAR-EASTERN CROP DIVERSITY AND ITS GLOBAL MIGRATION 2.1Diversity of Major Cultivated Plants Domesticated in the Near East A.B. Damania 2.2The Spread of Neolithic Agriculture from the Levant to Western Central Asia D.R. Harris 2.3The Spread of Agriculture to the Eastern Arc of the Fertile Crescent: Food for the Herders F. Hole 2.4Early History of Sesame Cultivation in the Near East and Beyond D. Bedigian 2.5Grain Legumes: Evidence of these Important Ancient Food Resources from Early Pre-agrarian and Agrarian Sites in Southwest Asia A. Butler Part 3 ARCHAEOBOTANICAL EVIDENCE FOR AGRICULTURAL TRANSITIONS 3.1Identifying Pre-domestication Cultivation Using Multivariate Analysis S. Colledge 3.2PPNA and PPNB Lithic Agricultural Tools on the Middle Euphrates: The Sites of Tell Mureybit and Tell Halula J.J. Ibáñez, J.E. Emilio González, A. Palomo and A. Ferrer 3.3History of Harvesting and Threshing Techniques for Cereals in the Prehistoric Near East P.C. Anderson 3.4Problems in Correlating Pollen Diagrams of the Near East - A Preliminary Report R.T.J. Cappers, S. Bottema and H. Woldring 3.5Investigations of Botanical Remains from Nevali Çori PPNB, Turkey - A Short Interim Report R. Pasternak 3.6Crop Water Availability from a Neolithic Pre-Pottery Site on the Euphrates Based on the Carbon Isotope Discrimination of Seeds J.L. Araus, A. Febrero, M. Català, M. Molist, I. Romagosa and J. Voltas Part 4 DOMESTICATION OF CROP PLANTS 4.1Use of Historical and Archaeological Information in Lentil Improvement Today W. Erskine 4.2What Can Molecular Markers Tell Us about the Process of Domestication in Common Bean? P. Gepts 4.3On the Origin and In Statu Nascendi Domestication of Rye and Barley V. Jaaska 4.4Plant Gathering Versus Plant Domestication: An Ethnobotanical Focus on Leafy Plants F. Ertug 4.5Origins and Domestication of Mediterranean Olive Through RAPD Marker Analyses G. Besnard, A. Moukhli, H. Sommerlatte, H. Hosseinpour, M. Tersac, P. Villemur, F. Dosba and A. Bervillé Part 5 HISTORICAL ASPECTS AND CROP EVOLUTION 5.1Genetic Evidence on the Origin of Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) J. Dvo_ák, M.-C. Luo and Z.-L. Yang 5.2Introgression of Durum into Wild Emmer and the Origin of Agriculture M.A. Blumler 5.3The Variation of Grain Characters in Diploid and Tetraploid Hulled Wheats and its Relevance for the Archaeological Record K. Hammer and C.-E. Specht 5.4Utilization of Ancient Tetraploid Wheat Species for Drought Tolerance in Durum Wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) A. Al Hakimi and P. Monneveux 5.5Archaeobotanical Evidence for Evolution of Cultivated Wheat and Barley in Armenia P.A. Gandilyan 5.5Extinction Threat of Wild African Gossypium species in their Center of Diversity V. Holubec Part 6 CONSERVATION OF WILD PROGENITORS 6.1Current Geographical Distribution and Habitat of Wild Wheats and Barley J. Valkoun, J. Giles Waines and J. Konopka 6.2In situ Conservation of Wild Relatives of Crop Plants in Relation to their History J. Giles Waines 6.3Domestication of Cereal Crop Plants and In Situ Conservation of their Genetic Resources in the Fertile Crescent A.B. Damania Summary and Recommendations Index