Is the Fig the Earliest Domesticated Crop?
Kris Hirst says no. The ancient fig story (namely evidence of fig tree propagation in the Mediterranean pushed back to between 10,500 to 11,700 years before the present), although definitely early and interesting, is not the earliest evidence for agricultural domestication in the world. She explains why assertions about the primacy of the fig are wrong. Here is the sort of article she is responding to: Tamed 11,400 Years Ago, Figs Were Likely First Domesticated Crop (from Playfuls.com): “Archaeobotanists have found evidence that the dawn of agriculture may have come with the domestication of fig trees in the Near East some 11,400 years ago, roughly a thousand years before such staples as wheat, barley, and legumes were domesticated in the region. The discovery dates domesticated figs to a period some 5,000 years
