Emmer

Taxonomy and phylogeny

Strong similarities in morphology and genetics show that wild emmer (T. dicoccoides Koern.) is the wild ancestor and a crop wild relative of domesticated emmer. Because wild and domesticated emmer are interfertile with other tetraploid wheats, some taxonomists consider all tetraploid wheats to belong to one species, T. turgidum. Under this scheme, the two forms are recognized at subspecies level, thus T. t. subsp. dicoccoides and T. t. subsp. dicoccum. Either naming system is equally valid; the latter lays more emphasis on genetic similarities.^[11] Wild emmer still grows wild in the Near East. It is a tetraploid wheat formed by the hybridization of two diploid wild grasses, wild red einkorn (Triticum urartu), and the goatgrass Aegilops speltoides.^[10]

The botanists Friedrich August Körnicke and Aaron Aaronsohn in the late 19th-century were the first to describe the wild emmer (Triticum dicoccoides) native to Palestine and adjacent countries.^[12][13][14] Earlier, in 1864, the Austrian botanist Kotschy collected specimens of the same wild emmer, without stating where he had collected them.^[15] Although cultivated in ancient Egypt, wild emmer has not been grown for human consumption in recent history,^[13] perhaps owing to the difficulty with which the chaff is separated from the seed kernels, formerly requiring the spikes to be pounded with mortar and pestle.^[8] Wild emmer is distinguished from common wheat by its tougher ear rachis and the beards releasing the grains easily, by their ear rachis becoming brittle when ripe and their firmly fitting beards.^[13] Wild emmer grows to a height of 50–70 cm (20–28 in), and bears an elongated spike measuring 10–15 cm (3.9–5.9 in), with long, protruding awns extending upwards.^[15]

Avni et al., 2017 provides a complete emmer genome.^[16]

History of cultivation

Wild emmer is native to the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, growing in the grass and woodland of hill country from modern-day Israel to Iran. The origin of wild emmer has been suggested, without universal agreement among scholars, to be the Karaca Dağ mountain region of southeastern Turkey. In 1906, Aaron Aaronsohn's discovery of wild emmer wheat growing in Rosh Pinna (Israel) created a stir in the botanical world.^[17] Emmer wheat has been found in archaeological excavations and ancient tombs. Emmer was collected from the wild and eaten by hunter gatherers for thousands of years before its domestication. Grains of wild emmer discovered at Ohalo II had a radiocarbon dating of 17,000 BC and at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) site of Netiv Hagdud are 10,000–9,400 years old.^[18]

The location of the earliest site of emmer domestication is still unclear and under debate.^[19] Some of the earliest sites with possible indirect evidence for emmer domestication during the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B include Tell Aswad, Çayönü, Cafer Höyük, Aşıklı Höyük, Kissonerga-Mylouthkia [de] and Shillourokambos.^[19] Definitive evidence for the full domestication of emmer wheat is not found until the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (10,200 to 9,500 BP), at sites such as Beidha, Tell Ghoraifé, Tell es-Sultan (Jericho), Abu Hureyra, Tell Halula, Tell Aswad and Cafer Höyük.^[19]

Emmer is found in a large number of Neolithic sites scattered around the fertile crescent. From its earliest days of cultivation, emmer was a more prominent crop than its cereal contemporaries and competitors, einkorn wheat and barley.^[20] Small quantities of emmer are present during Period 1 at Mehrgharh on the Indian subcontinent, showing that emmer was already cultivated there by 7000–5000 BC.^[21]

In the Near East, in southern Mesopotamia in particular, cultivation of emmer wheat began to decline in the Early Bronze Age, from about 3000 BC, and barley became the standard cereal crop. This has been related to increased salinization of irrigated alluvial soils, of which barley is more tolerant,^[22] although this study has been challenged.^[23] Emmer had a special place in ancient Egypt, where it was the main wheat cultivated in Pharaonic times, although cultivated einkorn wheat was grown in great abundance during the Third Dynasty, and large quantities of it were found preserved, along with cultivated emmer wheat and barleys, in the subterranean chambers beneath the Step Pyramid at Saqqara.^[24] Neighbouring countries also cultivated einkorn, durum and common wheat.^[25] In the absence of any obvious functional explanation, the greater prevalence of emmer wheat in the diet of ancient Egypt may simply reflect a marked culinary or cultural preference, or may reflect growing conditions having changed after the Third Dynasty. Emmer and barley were the primary ingredients in ancient Egyptian bread and beer. Emmer recovered from the Phoenician settlement at Volubilis^[26] (in present-day Morocco) has been dated to the middle of the first millennium BC.

Emmer wheat may be one of the five species of grain which have a special status in Judaism. One of these species, referred to as kusmin (Aramaic) or kūsmīn (Hebrew: כוסמין), may be either emmer or spelt (emmer and spelt are easily confused with each other). However, it is fairly certain that spelt did not grow in ancient Israel, and emmer was probably a significant crop until the end of the Iron Age. References to emmer in Greek and Latin texts are traditionally translated as "spelt", even though spelt was not common in the Classical world until very late in its history.^[27]

In northeastern Europe, emmer (alongside einkorn and barley) was one of the most important cereal species. This importance can be seen to increase from 3400 BC onward. Pliny the Elder notes that although emmer was called far in his time, it had formerly been called adoreum (or 'glory'), providing an etymology explaining that emmer had been held in glory.^[28] He mentions its use in sacrifices, stating that it had to be purified by roasting in order to be suitable.^[29] He states that in Etruria emmer was first roasted, then crushed either with an iron-capped pestle, or using a handmill that was toothed on the inside. This contrasted, Pliny writes, with the rest of Italy, where either a plain pestle or a watermill was used to make it into flour.^[30]