The Triumph of Wheat Set the Stage for Human Settlement, and Eventual Civilization
Wheat is a demanding plant. It is thirsty, so early farmers humans had to lug water or dig channels to bring water to it. Wheat is defenseless against critters that like to eat it, so humans defended it against rabbits, locusts, and deer. It likes nutrients, so humans collected animal feces to scatter it over wheat fields. Wheat gets sick, so humans had to keep a constant watch for blight and worms. It does not like to share its space with other plants, so humans spent hours stooping over wheat fields to remove weeds. Wheat does not like rocks or pebbles, so humans wrecked their backs to clear wheat fields.
Our bodies evolved to climb trees or chase after gazelles in the African Savannah. Evolution did not create a human body intended to bend over wheat fields to clear, weed, hoe, and water them, or perform many of the other myriad tasks required to care for that plant. Yet, wheat convinced us to do just that, and accept the resultant hernias, slipped disks, plus neck, knee, back, and foot pains as an acceptable price to pay in order to cultivate it. Seen from that perspective, the argument that it was wheat that actually domesticated humans, not humans who domesticated wheat, does not seem so farfetched. The very word “domesticate” is derived from the Latin root domus, or house. Wheat convinced our ancestors to give up hunter-gathering, and settle down in houses near their farms so they could be closer to wheat.
