1.
Pearl millet
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Pearl millet is the most widely grown type of millet. It has been grown in Africa and the Indian subcontinent since prehistoric times, the center of diversity, and suggested area of domestication, for the crop is in the Sahel zone of West Africa. Recent archaeobotanical research has confirmed the presence of domesticated pearl millet on the Sahel zone of northern Mali between 2500 and 2000 BC, cultivation subsequently spread and moved overseas to India. The earliest archaeological records in India date to around 2000 BC, cultivation also spread throughout eastern and southern parts of Africa. Pearl millet is grown in the northeastern part of Nigeria. It is a source of food to the local villagers of that region. The crop grows easily in that due to its ability to withstand harsh weather conditions like drought. Records exist for cultivation of millet in the United States in the 1850s. With ovoid grains of 3 –4 mm length pearl millet has the largest kernels of all varieties of millet which can be white, pale yellow, brown, grey. The 1000-seed weight can be anything from 2.5 to 14 g with a mean of 8 g, the height of the plant ranges from 0.5 –4 m. Pearl millet is well adapted to growing areas characterized by drought, low soil fertility and it performs well in soils with high salinity or low pH. Because of its tolerance to difficult growing conditions, it can be grown in areas where other crops, such as maize or wheat. Pearl millet is an annual crop well-suited for double cropping. Today pearl millet is grown on over 260,000 km2 of land worldwide and it accounts for approximately 50% of the total world production of millets. In Pakistan, باجرا, ٻاجھري Sindhi, In USA, cattail millet Kambu is the Tamil name of Pearl millet and is an important food across the Tamil Nadu. It is the important food for Tamil people consumed predominantly in the hot humid summer months from February through July every year. It is made into a gruel and consumed along with milk or consumed as dosa or aboriginal Tamil idly. Its also the street food during summer in Tamil Nadu
2.
Eleusine coracana
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Eleusine coracana, or finger millet, is an annual herbaceous plant widely grown as a cereal crop in the arid and semiarid areas in Africa and Asia. It is a tetraploid and self-pollinating species probably evolved from its wild relative Eleusine africana, Finger millet is native to the Ethiopian and Ugandan highlands. Finger millet originated in East Africa and came to India around 2000 BCE and it has been found in an Indian archaeological site dated to 1800 BCE. Main cultivation areas are Eastern and Southern African countries and Southern Asia, Finger millet is a short-day plant with a growing optimum at 12 h daylenght for most varieties. Its main growing area ranges from 20° N to 20° S, nevertheless, finger millet is found to be grown at 30° N in the Himalaya region. It is generally considered as a drought tolerant crop, but compared with other millets, such as pearl millet and sorghum it preferes moderate rainfall. The majority of worldwide finger millet farmers grow it rainfed, although yields often can be improved when irrigation is applied. In India, finger millet is a typical rabi crop, heat tolerance of finger millet is high. For Ugandan finger millet varieties for instance, the average growth temperature ranges at about 27 °C. Relatively to other millet species finger millet has a tolerance to cool temperatures. It is grown from about 500 meters above sea level up to about 2400 meters above sea level, by that, it can be cultivated on higher elevations than most tropical crops. Finger millet can grow on soils, including highly weathered tropical lateritic soils. Furthermore, it can tolerate soil salinity up to a certain extent and its ability to bear waterlogging is limited, therefore good drainage of the soils and moderate water holding capacity are optimal. Finger millet can tolerate moderately acidic soils but also moderately alkaline soils, Finger millet monocrops grown under rainfed conditions are most common in drier areas of Eastern Africa. In addition, intercropping with legumes, such as cowpea or pigeon pea, are quite common in East Africa. Tropical Central Africa supports scattered regions of finger millet intercropping mostly with legumes and its seeds are very small, which leads to a relatively slow development in early growing stages. This makes finger millet a weak competitor for light, water, in East and Southern Africa, the closely related species Eleusine indica is a severe weed competitor of finger millet. Especially in early growing stages of the crop and the weed and when broadcast seeding instead of row seeding is applied, besides Eleusine indica, the species Xanthium strumarium, which is animal disperesed and the stolon-owning species Cyperus rotondus and Cynodon dactylon are important finger millet weeds
3.
Proso millet
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It is still extensively cultivated in India, Nepal, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Middle East, Turkey and Romania. In the United States, proso is mainly grown for birdseed and it is sold as health food, and due to its lack of gluten, it can be included in the diets of people who cannot tolerate wheat. The name comes from the general and generic name for millet. Proso is well adapted to many soil and climatic conditions, it has a growing season. The water requirement of proso is probably the lowest of any major cereal and it is an excellent crop for dryland and no-till farming. Proso millet is an annual grass whose plants reach an height of 100 cm. Like corn, it has a C4 photosynthesis, the seeds are small and can be cream, yellow, orange-red, or brown in colour. Proso is an annual grass like all other millets, but it is not closely related to pearl millet, foxtail millet, finger millet, unlike the foxtail millet, the wild ancestor of the proso millet has not yet been satisfactorily identified. This millet has been found in Neolithic sites in Georgia, in Germany by Linear Pottery culture. Proso millet is a relatively low-demanding crop and diseases are not known, consequently, in the United States it is often used as an intercrop. Thus, proso millet can help to avoid a summer fallow and its superficial root system and its resistance to atrazine residue make proso millet a good intercrop between two water- and pesticide-demanding crops. The stubbles of the last crop, by allowing more heat into the soil, while millet occupies the ground, because of its superficial root system, the soil can replenish its water content for the next crop. Later crops, for example, a wheat, can in turn benefit from the millet stubble. Due to its C4 photosynthetic system, proso millet is thermophilic like maize, therefore, shady locations of the field should be avoided. It is sensitive to temperatures lower than 10 to 13 degrees Celsius. Proso millet is highly drought-resistant, which makes it of interest to regions with low water availability, the soil should be light or medium-heavy. Due to its root systems, soil compaction must be avoided. Furthermore, proso millet does not tolerate soil wetness caused by dammed-up water, the seedbed should be finely crumbled as for sugar beet and rapeseed
4.
Sprouting
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Sprouting is the practice of germinating seeds to be eaten raw or cooked. Sprouts can be germinated at home or produced industrially and they are a prominent ingredient of the raw food diet and common in Eastern Asian cuisine. Sprouting, like cooking, reduces anti-nutritional compounds in raw legumes, raw lentils, for example, contain lectins, anti-nutritional proteins which can be reduced by sprouting or cooking. Sprouting is also applied on a scale to barley as a part of the malting process. A downside to consuming raw sprouts is that the process of germinating seeds can also be conducive to bacterial growth. All viable seeds can be sprouted, but some sprouts should not be eaten raw, the most common food sprouts include, Pulses, alfalfa, clover, fenugreek, lentil, pea, chickpea, mung bean and soybean. Cereals, oat, wheat, maize, rice, barley, brassica broccoli, cabbage, watercress, mustard, mizuna, radish, and daikon, rocket, tatsoi, turnip. Umbelliferous vegetables - these may be used more as microgreens than sprouts, allium - cannot really distinguish between microgreens. Whole oats may have a hull which makes them difficult or even unfit for human consumption. In the case of rice, the husk of the paddy is removed before sprouting, brown rice is widely used for germination in Japan and other countries. All the sprouts of the solanaceae and rhubarb cannot be eaten as sprouts, either cooked or raw, some sprouts can be cooked to remove the toxin, while others cannot. With all seeds, care should be taken that they are intended for sprouting or human consumption rather than sowing, seeds intended for sowing may be treated with chemical dressings. Several countries, such as New Zealand, also require that some varieties of imported edible seed be heat-treated, quinoa in its natural state is very easy to sprout but when polished, or pre-cleaned of its saponin coating, loses its power to germinate. The germination process takes a few days and can be done at home manually, as a semi-automated process, typically the seeds are first rinsed to remove soil and dirt and the mucilaginous substances produced by some seeds when they come in contact with water. Then they are soaked for 20 minutes to 12 hours, depending on the type, the soaking increases the water content in the seeds and brings them out of quiescence. After draining and then rinsing seeds at regular intervals they germinate, for home sprouting, the seeds are soaked or moistened, then left at room temperature in a sprouting vessel. Many different types of vessels can be used, one type is a simple glass jar with a piece of cloth or nylon window screen secured over its rim. Tiered clear plastic sprouters are commercially available, allowing a number of crops to be grown simultaneously, by staggering sowings, a constant supply of young sprouts can be ensured
5.
Poaceae
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Poaceae or Gramineae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants known as grasses. Poaceae includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and cultivated lawns, Grasses have stems that are hollow except at the nodes and narrow alternate leaves borne in two ranks. The lower part of each leaf encloses the stem, forming a leaf-sheath, with ca 780 genera and around 12,000 species, Poaceae are the fifth-largest plant family, following the Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, Fabaceae and Rubiaceae. Grasslands such as savannah and prairie grasses are dominant are estimated to constitute 40. 5% of the land area of the Earth, excluding Greenland. Grasses are also an important part of the vegetation in many habitats, including wetlands, forests. Though commonly called grasses, seagrasses, rushes, and sedges fall outside this family, the rushes and sedges are related to the Poaceae, being members of the order Poales, but the seagrasses are members of order Alismatales. The name Poaceae was given by John Hendley Barnhart in 1895, based on the tribe Poeae described in 1814 by Robert Brown, the term is derived from the Ancient Greek πόα. Grasses include some of the most versatile plant life-forms, a cladogram shows subfamilies and approximate species numbers in brackets, Before 2005, fossil findings indicated that grasses evolved around 55 million years ago. Recent findings of grass-like phytoliths in Cretaceous dinosaur coprolites have pushed this back to 66 million years ago. In 2011, revised dating of the origins of the rice tribe Oryzeae suggested a date as early as 107 to 129 Mya, a multituberculate mammal with grass-eating adaptations seems to suggest that grasses were already around at 120 mya. This separation occurred within the short time span of about 4 million years. Grass leaves are always alternate and distichous, and have parallel veins. Each leaf is differentiated into a lower sheath hugging the stem, the leaf blades of many grasses are hardened with silica phytoliths, which discourage grazing animals, some, such as sword grass, are sharp enough to cut human skin. A membranous appendage or fringe of hairs called the ligule lies at the junction between sheath and blade, preventing water or insects from penetrating into the sheath, flowers of Poaceae are characteristically arranged in spikelets, each having one or more florets. The spikelets are further grouped into panicles or spikes, the part of the spikelet that bears the florets is called the rachilla. A spikelet consists of two bracts at the base, called glumes, followed by one or more florets, a floret consists of the flower surrounded by two bracts, one external—the lemma—and one internal—the palea. The flowers are usually hermaphroditic—maize being an important exception—and anemophilous or wind-pollinated, the perianth is reduced to two scales, called lodicules, that expand and contract to spread the lemma and palea, these are generally interpreted to be modified sepals. This complex structure can be seen in the image on the right, the fruit of grasses is a caryopsis, in which the seed coat is fused to the fruit wall
6.
Cereal
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A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain, composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. Edible grains from plant families, such as buckwheat, quinoa. In their natural form, cereals are a source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils. When refined by the removal of the bran and germ, the endosperm is mostly carbohydrate. In some developing nations, grain in the form of rice, wheat, millet, in developed nations, cereal consumption is moderate and varied but still substantial. The word cereal is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of harvest, agriculture allowed for the support of an increased population, leading to larger societies and eventually the development of cities. It also created the need for organization of political power, as decisions had to be made regarding labor and harvest allocation and access rights to water. Agriculture bred immobility, as populations settled down for long periods of time, early Neolithic villages show evidence of the development of processing grain. The Levant is the ancient home of the ancestors of wheat, barley and peas, there is evidence of the cultivation of figs in the Jordan Valley as long as 11,300 years ago, and cereal production in Syria approximately 9,000 years ago. During the same period, farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using man-made floods, fiber crops were domesticated as early as food crops, with China domesticating hemp, cotton being developed independently in Africa and South America, and Western Asia domesticating flax. The first cereal grains were domesticated by early primitive humans, about 8,000 years ago, they were domesticated by ancient farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region. Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley were three of the so-called Neolithic founder crops in the development of agriculture, around the same time, millets and rices were starting to become domesticated in East Asia. Sorghum and millets were also being domesticated in sub-Saharan West Africa, while each individual species has its own peculiarities, the cultivation of all cereal crops is similar. Most are annual plants, consequently one planting yields one harvest, wheat, rye, triticale, oats, barley, and spelt are the cool-season cereals. These are hardy plants grow well in moderate weather and cease to grow in hot weather. The warm-season cereals are tender and prefer hot weather, barley and rye are the hardiest cereals, able to overwinter in the subarctic and Siberia. Many cool-season cereals are grown in the tropics, however, some are only grown in cooler highlands, where it may be possible to grow multiple crops per year
7.
Crop
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A crop is any cultivated plant, fungus, or alga that is harvested for food, clothing, livestock, fodder, biofuel, medicine, or other uses. In contrast, animals that are raised by humans are called livestock, microbes, such as bacteria or viruses, are referred to as cultures. Microbes are not typically grown for food, but are used to alter food. For example, bacteria are used to ferment milk to produce yogurt, major crops include sugarcane, pumpkin, maize, wheat, rice, cassava, soybeans, hay, potatoes, and cotton. Sleper, David A. Poehlman, John M. Breeding Field Crops
8.
Fodder
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A crop is any cultivated plant, fungus, or alga that is harvested for food, clothing, livestock, fodder, biofuel, medicine, or other uses. In contrast, animals that are raised by humans are called livestock, microbes, such as bacteria or viruses, are referred to as cultures. Microbes are not typically grown for food, but are used to alter food. For example, bacteria are used to ferment milk to produce yogurt, major crops include sugarcane, pumpkin, maize, wheat, rice, cassava, soybeans, hay, potatoes, and cotton. Sleper, David A. Poehlman, John M. Breeding Field Crops
9.
Semi-arid climate
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A semi-arid climate or steppe climate is the climate of a region that receives precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not extremely. There are different kinds of climates, depending on such variables as temperature. Semi-arid climates tend to short or scrubby vegetation, with semi-arid areas usually dominated by either grasses or shrubs. To determine if a location has a climate, the precipitation threshold must first be determined. If the areas precipitation is less than the threshold but more than half the threshold. Hot semi-arid climates tend to be located in the tropics and subtropics and these climates tend to have hot, sometimes extremely hot, summers and warm to cool winters, with some to minimal precipitation. Hot semi-arid climates are most commonly found around the fringes of subtropical deserts, hot semi-arid climates are most commonly found in Africa, Australia and South Asia. In Australia, a portion of the Outback surrounding the central desert regions lies within the hot semi-arid climate regime. Hot semi-arid climates can also be found in North America, primarily in Mexico, areas of Texas near Mexico, cold semi-arid climates tend to be located in temperate zones or elevated portions in subtropical zones. They are typically found in continental interiors some distance from bodies of water. Cold semi-arid climates usually feature warm and dry summers, though their summers are not quite as hot as those of hot semi-arid climates. Unlike hot semi-arid climates, areas with cold semi-arid climates tend to have cold winters and these areas usually see some snowfall during the winter, though snowfall is much lower than at locations at similar latitudes with more humid climates. These large diurnal temperature variations are seen in hot semi-arid climates. Cold semi-arid climates are most commonly found in Asia and North America, however, they can also be found in Northern Africa, South Africa, Europe, sections of South America and sections of interior southern Australia and New Zealand. As a result of this, some areas can have climates that are classified as hot or cold depending on the isotherm used. One such location is San Diego, California, which has cool summers for the due to prevailing winds off the ocean. Arid Forest Research Institute Continental climate Dust Bowl Goyders Line Pallisers Triangle Köppen climate classification Wave height Ustic
10.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
11.
Mali
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Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali is the eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of just over 1,240,000 square kilometres, the population of Mali is 14.5 million. The countrys economy centers on agriculture and fishing, some of Malis prominent natural resources include gold, being the third largest producer of gold in the African continent, and salt. About half the population lives below the poverty line of $1.25 a day. A majority of the population are Muslims, present-day Mali was once part of three West African empires that controlled trans-Saharan trade, the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, and the Songhai Empire. During its golden age, there was a flourishing of mathematics, astronomy, literature, at its peak in 1300, the Mali Empire covered an area about twice the size of modern-day France and stretched to the west coast of Africa. In the late 19th century, during the Scramble for Africa, France seized control of Mali, French Sudan joined with Senegal in 1959, achieving independence in 1960 as the Mali Federation. Shortly thereafter, following Senegals withdrawal from the federation, the Sudanese Republic declared itself the independent Republic of Mali. After a long period of one-party rule, a coup in 1991 led to the writing of a new constitution and the establishment of Mali as a democratic, multi-party state. In January 2012, a conflict broke out in northern Mali, in which Tuareg rebels took control of by April and declared the secession of a new state. The conflict was complicated by a coup that took place in March. In response to Islamist territorial gains, the French military launched Opération Serval in January 2013, a month later, Malian and French forces recaptured most of the north. Presidential elections were held on 28 July 2013, with a second round held on 11 August. The name Mali is taken from the name of the Mali Empire, the name was originally derived from the Mandinka or Bambara word mali, meaning “hippopotamus”, but it eventually came to mean the place where the king lives. The word carries the connotation of strength, D. Niane suggests in Sundiata, An Epic of Old Mali that it is not impossible that Mali was the name given to one of the capitals of the emperors. 14th century Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta reported that the capital of the Mali Empire was indeed called Mali and this name could have formerly been that of a city. In old Mali there is one village called Malikoma which means “New Mali. ”Another theory suggests that Mali is a Fulani pronunciation of the name of the Mande peoples. It is suggested that a sound shift led to the change, whereby in Fulani the alveolar segment /nd/ shifts to /l/, Mali was once part of three famed West African empires which controlled trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, slaves, and other precious commodities
12.
Nigeria
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Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. It comprises 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Nigeria is officially a democratic secular country. Modern-day Nigeria has been the site of numerous kingdoms and tribal states over the millennia, the modern state originated from British colonial rule beginning in the 19th century, and the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914. The British set up administrative and legal structures whilst practising indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms, Nigeria became a formally independent federation in 1960, and plunged into a civil war from 1967 to 1970. Nigeria is often referred to as the Giant of Africa, owing to its large population, with approximately 184 million inhabitants, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh most populous country in the world. Nigeria has one of the largest populations of youth in the world, Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Christians, who live mostly in the southern part of the country, and Muslims in the northern part. A minority of the population practise religions indigenous to Nigeria, such as native to the Igbo. As of 2015, Nigeria is the worlds 20th largest economy, worth more than $500 billion and $1 trillion in terms of nominal GDP and it overtook South Africa to become Africas largest economy in 2014. The 2013 debt-to-GDP ratio was 11 percent, Nigeria is a member of the MINT group of countries, which are widely seen as the globes next BRIC-like economies. It is also listed among the Next Eleven economies set to become among the biggest in the world, Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many other international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations and OPEC. The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country and this name was coined in the late 19th century by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Lord Lugard, a British colonial administrator. The origin of the name Niger, which applied only to the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name egerew n-igerewen used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu prior to 19th-century European colonialism. The Nok civilisation of Northern Nigeria flourished between 500 BC and AD200, producing life-sized terracotta figures which are some of the earliest known sculptures in Sub-Saharan Africa, further north, the cities Kano and Katsina have a recorded history dating to around 999 AD. Hausa kingdoms and the Kanem-Bornu Empire prospered as trade posts between North and West Africa, the Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people consolidated in the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British in 1911. Nri was ruled by the Eze Nri, and the city of Nri is considered to be the foundation of Igbo culture, Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan. Members of the clan trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri, in West Africa, the oldest bronzes made using the lost-wax process were from Igbo Ukwu, a city under Nri influence. The Yoruba kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in southwestern Nigeria became prominent in the 12th and 14th centuries, the oldest signs of human settlement at Ifes current site date back to the 9th century, and its material culture includes terracotta and bronze figures
13.
Niger
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Niger, officially the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. Niger is bordered by Libya to the northeast, Chad to the east, Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, and Algeria to the northwest. Niger covers a area of almost 1,270,000 km2, making it the largest country in West Africa. The countrys predominantly Islamic population of about 19 million is mostly clustered in the far south, the capital city is Niamey, located in the far-southwest corner of Niger. Niger is a country, and is consistently one of the lowest-ranked in the United Nations Human Development Index. Much of the portions of the country are threatened by periodic drought. The economy is concentrated around subsistence and some export agriculture clustered in the fertile south. Nigerien society reflects a diversity drawn from the long independent histories of its ethnic groups and regions. Historically, what is now Niger has been on the fringes of large states. Since independence, Nigeriens have lived under five constitutions and three periods of military rule, following a military coup in 2010, Niger has become a democratic, multi-party state. A majority live in areas, and have little access to advanced education. Early human settlement in Niger is evidenced by archaeological remains. In prehistoric times, the climate of the Sahara was wet and provided favorable conditions for agriculture, in 2005–06, a graveyard in the Tenere desert was discovered by Paul Sereno, a paleontologist from the University of Chicago. His team discovered 5, 000-year-old remains of a woman and two children in the Tenere Desert, the evidence along with remains of animals that do not typically live in desert are among the strongest evidence of the green Sahara in Niger. It is believed that progressive desertification around 5000 BCE pushed sedentary populations to the south and south-east. By at least the 5th century BCE, Niger became an area of trade, led by the Berber tribes from the north. This trade has made Agadez a pivotal place of the trans-Saharan trade and this mobility, which would continue in waves for several centuries, was accompanied with further migration to the south and interbreeding between southern black and northern white populations. It was also aided by the introduction of Islam to the region at the end of the 7th century, several empires and kingdoms also flourished during this era up to the beginning of colonization in Africa
14.
Developing country
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Also, the general term less-developed country should not be confused with the specific least developed country. The term developing describes a currently observed situation and not a dynamic or expected direction of progress, since the late 1990s developing countries tended to demonstrate higher growth rates than the developed ones. There is criticism of the use of the developing country. The term implies inferiority of a country or undeveloped country compared with a developed country. It assumes a desire to develop along the traditional Western model of development which a few countries, such as Cuba and Bhutan. An alternative measurement that has suggested is that of gross national happiness. Countries on the boundary between developed and developing are often categorized under the newly industrialized countries. In the 2016 edition of its World Development Indicators, the World Bank made a decision to no longer distinguish between “developed” and “developing” countries in the presentation of its data, nobody has ever agreed on a definition for these terms in the first place. Various terms are used for whatever is not a developed country, terms used include less developed country or less economically developed country, and for the more extreme, least developed country or least economically developed country. But according to the United Nations Statistics Division, There is no established convention for the designation of developed, the World Bank classifies countries into four income groups. These are set each year on July 1, economies were divided according to 2016 GNI per capita using the following ranges of income, Low income countries had GNI per capita of US$1,025 or less. Lower middle income countries had GNI per capita between US$1,026 and US$4,035, upper middle income countries had GNI per capita between US$4,036 and US$12,475. High income countries had GNI per capita above US$12,476 and this may be by absolute numbers or country ranking. The UN has developed the Human Development Index, an indicator of the above statistics. The UN sets Millennium Development Goals from a blueprint developed by all of the countries and leading development institutions. There is an association between low income and high population growth. The terms utilized when discussing developing countries refer to the intent, other terms sometimes used are less developed countries, least economically developed countries, underdeveloped nations or Third World nations, and non-industrialized nations. Conversely, developed countries, most economically developed countries, First World nations and that is, LEDCs are the poorest subset of LDCs
15.
Agricultural productivity
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Agricultural productivity is measured as the ratio of agricultural outputs to agricultural inputs. While individual products are measured by weight, their varying densities make measuring overall agricultural output difficult. Therefore, output is measured as the market value of final output. This output value may be compared to different types of inputs such as labour. These are called partial measures of productivity, agricultural productivity may also be measured by what is termed total factor productivity. This method of calculating agricultural productivity compares an index of agricultural inputs to an index of outputs, changes in TFP are usually attributed to technological improvements.4.1, Mechanization, Agriculture, Section 2.6, Scientific agriculture. The productivity of a regions farms is important for many reasons, an increase in a regions agricultural productivity implies a more efficient distribution of scarce resources. As farms become more productive, the wages earned by those who work in agriculture increase, at the same time, food prices decrease and food supplies become more stable. Labourers therefore have more money to spend on food as well as other products and this also leads to agricultural growth. People see that there is an opportunity to earn their living by farming and are attracted to agriculture either as owners of farms themselves or as labourers. However, it is not only the people employed in agriculture who benefit from increases in agricultural productivity and those employed in other sectors also enjoy lower food prices and a more stable food supply. Agricultural productivity is becoming important as the world population continues to grow. India, one of the worlds most populous countries, has taken steps in the past decades to increase its land productivity. Forty years ago, North India produced only wheat, but with the advent of the earlier maturing high-yielding wheats and rices and this wheat/rice combination is now widely used throughout the Punjab, Haryana, and parts of Uttar Pradesh. The wheat yield of three tons and rice yield of two tons combine for five tons of grain per hectare, helping to feed Indias 1.1 billion people, increase in agricultural productivity is often linked with questions about sustainability and sustainable development. Changes in agricultural practices necessarily bring changes in demands on resources, between 1950 and 2000, during the so-called second agricultural revolution of modern times, U. S. agricultural productivity rose fast, especially due to the development of new technologies. For many farmers agricultural productivity may mean much more, a productive farm is one that provides most of the resources necessary for the farmers family to live, such as food, fuel, fiber, healing plants, etc. It is a farm which ensures food security as well as a way to sustain the well-being of a community and this implies that a productive farm is also one which is able to ensure proper management of natural resources, such as biodiversity, soil, water, etc
16.
Foxtail millet
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Foxtail millet is an annual grass grown for human food. It is the second-most widely planted species of millet, and the most important in East Asia and it has the longest history of cultivation among the millets, having been grown in India since antiquity. According to recent research, it was first domesticated in China around 6,000 BC, other names for the species include dwarf setaria, foxtail bristle-grass, giant setaria, green foxtail, Italian millet, German millet, and Hungarian millet. Foxtail millet is a grass with slim, vertical, leafy stems which can reach a height of 120–200 cm. The seedhead is a dense, hairy panicle 5–30 cm long, the small seeds, around 2 mm in diameter, are encased in a thin, papery hull which is easily removed in threshing. Seed color varies greatly between varieties, the grain obtained from it is called jopsal, a word that is commonly used in Korean as a metaphor for pettiness or innumerable small things. It is the commonly used for the grain after it has been husked, unhusked grain is called guzi in North China. Marathi, kang or rala Sinhala, thana haal Tamil, thinai, kavalai, or kambankorai, the gruel made from millet, the staple of Ancient Tamils, is called kali, moddak kali, kuul, or sangati. In South India, it has been a staple diet among people for a time from the sangam period. It is popularly quoted in the old Tamil texts and is associated with Lord Muruga. In China, foxtail millet is the most common millet and one of the food crops. In Southeast Asia, foxtail millet is commonly cultivated in its dry, in Europe and North America it is planted at a moderate scale for hay and silage, and to a more limited extent for birdseed. It is a warm season crop, typically planted in late spring, Harvest for hay or silage can be made in 65–70 days, and for grain in 75–90 days. Its early maturity and efficient use of water make it suitable for raising in dry areas. Diseases of foxtail millet include leaf and head blast disease caused by Magnaporthe grisea, smut disease caused by Ustilago crameri, the unharvested crop is also susceptible to attack by birds and rodents. The wild antecedent of foxtail millet has been identified as Setaria viridis. Zohary and Hopf note that the difference between the wild and cultivated forms is their seed dispersal biology. Wild and weedy forms shatter their seed while the cultivars retain them, more recently, the Cishan culture of China has been identified as the earliest to domesticate foxtail millet around 6500–5500 BC
17.
Civilization
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Historically, a civilization was a so-called advanced culture in contrast to more supposedly primitive cultures. As an uncountable noun, civilization also refers to the process of a society developing into a centralized, urbanized, stratified structure, Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings. The earlier neolithic technology and lifestyle was established first in the Middle East, and later in the Yangtze and Yellow River basins in China, similar pre-civilized neolithic revolutions also began independently from 7,000 BCE in such places as northwestern South America and Mesoamerica. These were among the six civilizations worldwide that arose independently, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BCE, with civilizations developing from 6,500 years ago. Towards the end of the Neolithic period, various elitist Chalcolithic civilizations began to rise in various cradles from around 3300 BCE. Chalcolithic civilizations, as defined above, also developed in Pre-Columbian Americas and, despite an early start in Egypt, Axum and Kush, the English word civilization comes from the 16th-century French civilisé, from Latin civilis, related to civis and civitas. The fundamental treatise is Norbert Eliass The Civilizing Process, which traces social mores from medieval courtly society to the Early Modern period, in The Philosophy of Civilization, Albert Schweitzer outlines two opinions, one purely material and the other material and ethical. Adjectives like civility developed in the mid-16th century, the abstract noun civilization, meaning civilized condition, came in the 1760s, again from French. The word was therefore opposed to barbarism or rudeness, in the pursuit of progress characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, during the French revolution, civilization was used in the singular, never in the plural and this is still the case in French. The use of civilizations as a noun was in occasional use in the 19th century. Only in this sense does it become possible to speak of a medieval civilization. Already in the 18th century, civilization was not always seen as an improvement, one historically important distinction between culture and civilization is from the writings of Rousseau, particularly his work about education, Emile. From this, a new approach was developed, especially in Germany, first by Johann Gottfried Herder and this sees cultures as natural organisms, not defined by conscious, rational, deliberative acts, but a kind of pre-rational folk spirit. Civilization, in contrast, though more rational and more successful in material progress, is unnatural and leads to vices of social life such as guile, hypocrisy, envy and avarice. In World War II, Leo Strauss, having fled Germany, argued in New York that this opinion of civilization was behind Nazism, Social scientists such as V. Gordon Childe have named a number of traits that distinguish a civilization from other kinds of society. Andrew Nikiforuk argues that civilizations relied on shackled human muscle and it took the energy of slaves to plant crops, clothe emperors, and build cities and considers slavery to be a common feature of pre-modern civilizations. All civilizations have depended on agriculture for subsistence, grain farms can result in accumulated storage and a surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural techniques such as artificial fertilization, irrigation and crop rotation
18.
Chloridoideae
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Chloridoideae is one of the largest subfamilies of grasses, with roughly 130 genera and 1,600 species, mainly found in arid tropical or subtropical grasslands. Within the PACMAD clade, their group are the Danthonioideae. The subfamily includes widespread weeds such as Bermuda grass or goosegrass, with the exception of some species in Ellisochloa, most of the subfamilys species use the C4 photosynthetic pathway. The first evolutionary transition from C3 to C4 photosynthesis in the grasses probably occurred in this subfamily, relationships of tribes in the Chloridoideae according to a 2015 phylogenetic classification, also showing the Danthonioideae as sister group
19.
Eragrostis tef
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Eragrostis tef, known as teff, Williams lovegrass, annual bunch grass, taf, or xaafii, is an annual grass, a species of lovegrass native to Eritrea and Ethiopia. Eragrostis tef has an attractive nutrition profile, being high in fiber and iron and providing protein. It is similar to millet and quinoa in cooking, but the seed is much smaller and cooks faster, Eragrostis tef is adapted to environments ranging from drought stress to waterlogged soil conditions. Maximum teff production occurs at altitudes of 1,800 to 2,100 m, growing season rainfall of 450 to 550 mm, teff is daylight-sensitive and flowers best with 12 hours of daylight. Teff is an important food grain in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where it is used to make injera or keyta and it is now raised in the US, in Idaho and Nevada. In addition to people from traditional teff-consuming countries, customers include those on gluten-restricted diets, because of its small seeds, a handful is enough to sow a large area. This property makes teff particularly suited to a seminomadic lifestyle, Ethiopia had a long-standing ban in effect on the export of teff grain or flour from the country prompted by increasing grain prices. In 2015, that ban was lifted after the introduction of farming techniques which improved yields by 40%, between 8000 and 5000 BC, the people of the Ethiopian highlands were among the first to domesticate plants and animals for food. Teff was one of the earliest plants domesticated, teff is believed to have originated in Ethiopia and Eritrea between 4000 BC and 1000 BC. Genetic evidence points to E. pilosa as the most likely wild ancestor, a 19th-century identification of teff seeds from an ancient Egyptian site is now considered doubtful, the seeds in question are more likely of E. aegyptiaca, a common wild grass in Egypt. Teff is noted for its quality and high yield, when compared to other forage rotations. It is also known as an emergency crop because it is planted late in the spring when the season is warmer. It does not tolerate any type of frost, the first draft of the Eragrostis tef genome was published in 2014. In 1996, the US National Research Council characterized teff as having the potential to improve nutrition, boost food security, foster rural development, teff has been widely cultivated and used in Ethiopia and neighboring countries, accounting for about a quarter of total cereal production in Ethiopia. Teff is an ingredient for preparing injera, a sourdough-risen flatbread. Teff is high in protein, carbohydrates and fiber, in one study in Ethiopia, farmers indicated a preference among consumers for white teff over darker colored varieties. As a nutritious fodder, teff is used to feed ruminants in Ethiopia, teff is also valued for its fine straw, which is traditionally mixed with mud for building purposes. Purdue University Center for New Crops & Plant Products – Eragrostis tef University of Bern Tef Improvement Project Dressler, S. Schmidt, M. & Zizka, african plants – a Photo Guide
20.
Paniceae
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Paniceae is a large tribe of the Panicoideae subfamily in the grasses, the only in the monotypic supertribe Panicodae. It includes roughly 1,500 species in 84 genera, primarily found in tropical and subtropical regions of the world, Paniceae includes species using either of the C4 and C3 photosynthetic pathways, as well as presumably intermediate species. Most of the millets are members of tribe Paniceae, the tribe is subdivided into seven subtribes, but some genera are as yet unplaced. Species in the Paniceae have a chromosome number of x =9, while species with x =10 formerly included are now recognised as separate tribe
21.
Panicoideae
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Panicoideae is the second-largest subfamily of the grasses with over 3,500 species, mainly distributed in warm temperate and tropical regions. It comprises some important agricultural crops, including sugarcane, maize, sorghum, c4 photosynthesis evolved independently a number of times in the subfamily, which presumably had a C3 ancestor. Within the PACMAD clade of grasses, the Panicoideae are sister to a made of the four subfamilies Arundinoideae, Chloridoideae, Danthonioideae. The three largest tribes, Paniceae, Paspaleae, and Andropogoneae, together with the small Arundinelleae, the Gynerieae were formerly placed in Arundinoideae, and the basal lineage, the centothecoid clade with seven tribes, was formerly seen as separate subfamily, Centothecoideae. Phylogeny based on chloroplast DNA analyses, showing relationships of tribes within the subfamily, Diversity of Panicoideae
22.
Panicum
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Panicum is a large genus of about 450 species of grasses native throughout the tropical regions of the world, with a few species extending into the northern temperate zone. They are often large, annual or perennial grasses, growing to 1–3 m tall, the flowers are produced in a well-developed panicle often up to 60 cm in length with numerous seeds, which are 1–6 mm long and 1–2 mm broad. The fruits are developed from a two-flowered spikelet, only the upper floret of each spikelet is fertile, the lower floret is sterile or staminate. Both glumes are present and well developed, australia has 29 native and 9 introduced species of Panicum. Well-known Panicum species include proso millet and switchgrass, interactive Key to Panicum of North America
23.
Panicum sumatrense
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Panicum sumatrense, known as little millet, is a species of millet in the family Poaceae. This species of cereal is similar in habit to the proso millet except that it is smaller and it is an annual herbaceous plant, which grows straight or with folded blades to a height of 30 cm to 1 m. The leaves are linear, with the sometimes hairy laminae and membranous hairy ligules, the panicles are from 4 to 15 cm in length with 2 to 3.5 mm long awn. The grain is round and smooth,1.8 to 1.9 mm long, there have been two subspecies described, Panicum sumatrense Roth ex Roem. Sumatrense In the temperate zones of Asia, the Caucasus, China, East Asia and also in the tropics of the continent, India, Indochina and it can withstand both drought and waterlogging. It can be cultivated up to 2000 m above sea level. Hindi, Moraiyo, Kutki, Shavan. Bengali, Sama. Tamil, Samai. Gujarati, Gajro, Kuri. Telugu, Samalu. Marathi, Sava, Halvi, Vari. Oriya, Suan. Kannada, the largest cultivation is in central India. Usually, it is planted using a seed drill and it can also if necessary be planted spoiled. The green plant can also be used in part as cattle feed, the straw can be mixed with clay or cement be used in construction. The harvest yield is from 230 to 900 kg/ha, at the Indus Valley Civilisation sites of Harappa and Farmana, the millet assemblage was dominated by little millet. Over 10,000 grains of little millet were recovered at Harappa, at Harappa, little millet cultivation peaked at around 2600 BC, accounting for around 5% of the total cereal assemblage. Little Millet is cooked like rice, sometimes the millet is also milled and baked. The protein content of the grain is 7. 7% and this article is based on a translation of the corresponding article in the German Wikipedia
24.
Pennisetum glaucum
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Pearl millet is the most widely grown type of millet. It has been grown in Africa and the Indian subcontinent since prehistoric times, the center of diversity, and suggested area of domestication, for the crop is in the Sahel zone of West Africa. Recent archaeobotanical research has confirmed the presence of domesticated pearl millet on the Sahel zone of northern Mali between 2500 and 2000 BC, cultivation subsequently spread and moved overseas to India. The earliest archaeological records in India date to around 2000 BC, cultivation also spread throughout eastern and southern parts of Africa. Pearl millet is grown in the northeastern part of Nigeria. It is a source of food to the local villagers of that region. The crop grows easily in that due to its ability to withstand harsh weather conditions like drought. Records exist for cultivation of millet in the United States in the 1850s. With ovoid grains of 3 –4 mm length pearl millet has the largest kernels of all varieties of millet which can be white, pale yellow, brown, grey. The 1000-seed weight can be anything from 2.5 to 14 g with a mean of 8 g, the height of the plant ranges from 0.5 –4 m. Pearl millet is well adapted to growing areas characterized by drought, low soil fertility and it performs well in soils with high salinity or low pH. Because of its tolerance to difficult growing conditions, it can be grown in areas where other crops, such as maize or wheat. Pearl millet is an annual crop well-suited for double cropping. Today pearl millet is grown on over 260,000 km2 of land worldwide and it accounts for approximately 50% of the total world production of millets. In Pakistan, باجرا, ٻاجھري Sindhi, In USA, cattail millet India is the largest producer of pearl millet, rajasthan is the highest-producing state in India. The second largest producer of millet and the first to start cultivation. Pearl millet is an important food across the Sahel region of Africa and it is a main staple in a large region of northern Nigeria, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. It is often ground into a flour, rolled into balls, parboiled, liquefied into a watery paste using fermented milk
25.
Digitaria
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Digitaria is a genus of plants in the grass family native to tropical and warm temperate regions. Common names include crabgrass, finger-grass, and fonio and they are slender monocotyledonous annual and perennial lawn, pasture, and forage plants, some are often considered lawn pests. Digitus is the Latin word for finger, and they are distinguished by the long, Digitaria species occur in tropical, subtropical, and temperate regions of both hemispheres. Though some Digitaria species are weeds, others have uses, especially as food, the seeds, most notably those of fonio, can be toasted and ground into a flour, which can be used to make porridge or fermented to make beer. Fonio has been used as a staple crop in parts of Africa. It also has decent nutrient qualities as a forage for cattle, the prevalent species of Digitaria in North America are large crabgrass, sometimes known as hairy crabgrass, and smooth crabgrass. These species often become problem weeds in lawns and gardens, growing well in thin lawns that are watered lightly, underfertilized. They are annual plants, and one plant is capable of producing 150,000 seeds per season, the seeds germinate in the late spring and early summer and outcompete the domesticated lawn grasses, expanding outward in a circle up to 30 cm in diameter. In the autumn when the die, they leave large voids in the lawn. The voids then become prime areas for the seeds to germinate the following season. Crabgrass is quickly outcompeted by healthy lawn grass because, as a plant, crabgrass dies off in autumn
26.
Digitaria exilis
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Digitaria exilis, referred to as findi in areas of Africa, such as The Gambia, with English common names white fonio, fonio millet, and hungry rice or acha rice, is a grass species. It is the most important of a group of wild. It has potential to improve nutrition, boost food security, foster rural development, the name is from Wolof foño. Fonio has continued to be important locally because it is nutritious and one of the worlds fastest growing cereals, reaching maturity in as little as six to eight weeks. It is a crop that can be relied on in areas with poor soils. The grains are used in porridge and couscous, for bread, the small grains make it difficult and time-consuming to remove the husk. Traditional methods include pounding it in a mortar with sand or popping it over a flame, the invention of a simple fonio husking machine offers an easier mechanical way to dehusk. The genetic diversity of Digitaria exilis varies from region to region in Africa, for example, not much genetic diversity was detected among the domesticated Digitaria exilis landraces from Mali. In contrast, large levels of genetic diversity were detected among the domesticated Digitaria exilis landraces of the Upper Niger River Basin of West Africa, the many different landraces of Digitaria exilis are affected differently by the various processing methods. The fonio is an annual, erect plant which reaches stature heights from 30 to 80 centimeters. The ears consist of two to five narrow part ears, which are up to 15 centimeters long, the spikelets comprise a sterile flower and a fertile flower, the latter of which gives rise to the fonio grain. The grain is a caryopsis, which surrounded by glumes. Its size is small, only 1.5 mm. The colour ranges from white, yellow. Fonio mature faster than all other cereals, some varieties can already be harvested 42–56 days after sowing. Other ripen more slowly, usually in 165–180 days, Fonio is one of the ancient African crops, possibly the oldest West African crop as its cultivation seems to have started about 7,000 years ago. The first references to Fonio as food are reported from the mid-14th century, in some regions of Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Nigeria, Fonio is the most important or one of the main cereals. The White Fonio has its main growing region in the plateaus of Nigeria. The second Fonio-species Iburu or Black Fonio is limited on the Jos-Bauchi Plateau in Nigeria, Fonio is grown in parts of the Dominican Republic, where it has already brought in 1500 from West Africa, firstly only grew as a weed, but it is also cultivated again lately
27.
Digitaria sanguinalis
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Digitaria sanguinalis is a species of grass known by several common names, including hairy crabgrass, hairy finger-grass, large crabgrass, crab finger grass, purple crabgrass. It is one of the species of the genus Digitaria. It is used as fodder, and the seeds are edible and have been used as a grain in Germany and especially Poland. This has earned it the name Polish Millet and it is an annual grass with an inflorescence of up to nine very long, very thin, radiating branches atop its stems. Each branch is lined with pairs of tiny spikelets. The inflorescences may be reddish or purplish, Digitaria sanguinalis was brought to the United States by some immigrants to serve as hand-foraged grain. The grass is highly nutritious, especially before the plant exhausts itself producing seed. It is frequently sown in fields to provide graze for animals, compared to other grasses, it has a relatively high protein percentage. Farmers will sometimes till patches in their pastures in the late spring, for human consumption, crabgrass necessarily must be harvested by hand, because it produces grain throughout summer, rather than simultaneously. Machine harvesting would require monthly passes, and even much of the seed would go to waste. Crabgrass produces a high amount of grain, it smothers other weeds, it acts as its own mulch. Its adaptability makes it a candidate for environmental small-farming and its usefulness to nineteenth-century homesteaders has made its seed widespread, and today is generally considered an unattractive nuisance. Crabgrass takes advantage of low fertility and drought, since this tends to other grasses. It is difficult to kill, as it will regenerate, the most efficient means of control is to pull patches, and keep the rest of the lawn watered and mowed at a height of two-three inches
28.
Echinochloa
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Echinochloa is a very widespread genus of plants in the grass family. Some of the species are known by the common names barnyard grass or cockspur grass, some of whose members of the genus are millets grown as cereal or fodder crops. The most notable of these are Japanese millet in East Asia, Indian barnyard millet in South Asia, collectively, the members of this genus are called barnyard grasses, barnyard millets or billion-dollar grasses. When not grown on purpose, these grasses may become a nuisance to farmers, in particular, common barnyard grass is notorious as a weed. It is not easily suppressed with living mulches such as velvet bean, early barnyard grass is a well-known example of Vavilovian mimicry, the plants have evolved to resemble rice, enabling them to escape weeding more easily. Among the plant pathogens that affect this genus are the sac fungus Cochliobolus sativus, which has noted on common barnyard grass. Both affect many other species, in particular most important cereals. The fungi Drechslera monoceras and Exserohilum monoceras have been evaluated with some success as biocontrol agents of common barnyard grass in rice fields. More research is necessary, however, because they may not be enough to be of practical use. Species formerly included see Acroceras Axonopus Brachiaria Oplismenopsis Oplismenus Panicum Paspalidium Pseudechinolaena Setaria Urochloa Plants for a Future, lost Crops of Africa, Volume 1, Grains, Chapter 14, Wild Grains
29.
Echinochloa frumentacea
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Echinochloa frumentacea is a species of Echinochloa. Both Echinochloa frumentacea and E. esculenta are called Japanese millet and this millet is widely grown as a cereal in India, Pakistan, and Nepal. Its wild ancestor is the tropical grass Echinochloa colona, but the date or region of domestication is uncertain. It is cultivated on marginal lands where rice and other crops will not grow well, the grains are cooked in water, like rice, or boiled with milk and sugar. Sometimes it is fermented to make beer, while also being part of staple diet for some communities in India, these seeds are, in particular, eaten during religious fasting. For this reason, these seeds are also referred to as vrat ke chawal in Hindi. Other common names to identify these seeds include Jhangora in the Garhwal Hills, Samo seeds, Morio / Mario / Moraiaya seeds, Bhagar
30.
Echinochloa crus-galli
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Echinochloa crus-galli is a type of wild grass originating from tropical Asia that was formerly classified as a type of panicum grass. It is commonly known as cockspur, barnyard millet, Japanese millet, water grass, common barnyard grass and this plant can grow to 60 in height and has long, flat leaves which are often purplish at the base. Most stems are upright, but some spread out over the ground. Stems are flattened at the base, the seed heads are a distinctive feature, often purplish, with large millet-like seeds in crowded spikelets. Considered one of the worlds worst weeds, it reduces crop yields, the high levels of nitrates it accumulates can poison livestock. It acts as a host for several mosaic virus diseases, heavy infestations can interfere with mechanical harvesting. Individual plants can produce up to 40,000 seeds per year, water, birds, insects, machinery, and animal feet disperse it, but contaminated seed is probably the most common dispersal method. Polymorphous coarse, tufted annual, tall and often weedy, culms erect to decumbent,0. 8-1.5 m tall, rather thick, branching at base.5 mm long. Barnyard grass commonly occurs throughout tropical Asia and Africa in fields and along roadsides, ditches, along railway lines and it also invades riverbanks and the shores of lakes and ponds. It occurs in all agricultural regions and this species is considered an invasive species in North America where it occurs throughout the continental United States. It is also found in southern Canada from British Columbia east to Newfoundland and it was first spotted in the Great Lakes region in 1843. Ranging from Boreal Moist to Wet through Tropical Very Dry to Moist forest life zones, adapted to nearly all types of wet places, this grass is often a common weed in paddy fields, roadsides, cultivated areas, and fallow fields. It grows on variety of wet sites such as ditches, low areas in fertile croplands and wet wastes, succeeds in cool regions, but better adapted to areas where average annual temperature is 14-16 °C. A warm-season grass used as fodder and is sometimes cultivated for this purpose. It is also suited for silage, but not for hay and it is fed green to animals and provides fodder throughout the year, hay made from this plant can be kept up to 6 years. This grass is used for reclamation of saline and alkaline areas. The grain of some varieties is eaten by humans in times of scarcity, the roots are boiled to cure indigestion in the Philippines. The young shoots are eaten as a vegetable, the plant extract is used in diseases of the spleen
31.
Paspalum scrobiculatum
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Paspalum scrobiculatum, Kodo millet, is an annual grain that is grown in primarily in India, but also in the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and in West Africa where it originates. It is grown as a crop in most of these areas. Kodo millet is a monocot and a grass that grows to heights of approximately four feet. It has an inflorescence that produces 4-6 racemes that are 4–9 cm long and its slender, light green leaves grow to be 20 to 40 centimeters in length. The seeds it produces are very small and ellipsoidal, being approximately 1.5 mm in width and 2 mm in length, Kodo millet has a shallow root system which may be ideal for intercropping. Paspalum scrobiculatum var. scrobiculatum is grown in India as an important crop, the domestication process is still ongoing. In southern India, it is called kodo or kodra, and it is a minor food crop eaten in many Asian countries, primarily in India where in some regions it is extremely important. It grows wild as a perennial in the west of Africa, often it grows as a weed in rice fields. Many farmers do not mind it, as it can be harvested as a crop if their primary crop fails. In the Southern United States and Hawaii, it is considered to be a noxious weed, Kodo millet is propagated from seed, ideally in row planting instead of broadcast sowing. Its preferred soil type is a fertile, clay-based soil. Var. scrobiculatum is better suited to dried conditions than its wild counterpart, with very low competition from other plants or weeds for nutrients, it can grow well in poor-nutrient soils. However, it does best in soils supplemented with a general fertilizer, the recommended dose for optimal growth is 40 kg of nitrogen plus 20 kg of phosphorus per hectare. A case study in Indias Rewa district in 1997 showed a 72% increase in kodo millet grain yields as opposed to no fertilizer and it should be noted that lodging issues may accompany this. Kodo millet prefers full light for growth, but can tolerate some partial shading. Its ideal temperature for growth is 25-27 °C and it requires four months until maturity and harvesting. The kodo millet is prone to lodging at maturity, causing loss of grain, to prevent this, limited fertilization is recommended. While plenty of fertilizer dramatically improves yields, there is the risk of lodging accompanying vigorous growth, a good balance is applying 14–22 kg of nitrogen
32.
Brachiaria
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Brachiaria, or signalgrass, is a genus of plants in the grass family native to tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa, Australia, southern Europe, the Americas, and various islands. Some species are cultivated as forage, some species of Brachiaria were probably first introduced unintentionally to the Americas in the colonial period, from slave ships. B. decumbens was introduced to Brazil in 1952 and B. ruziziensis in the 1960s, Brachiaria is the most widely used tropical grass in Central and South America, with about 40 million hectares planted in Brazil alone. This genus was described in 1853 and it is similar to Panicum, and some authors believe Panicum is ancestral to it. It has also confused with Urochloa, and sometimes combined with it. In the meantime, Brachiaria and Urochloa plants are not difficult to distinguish from one another. Brachiaria are annual or perennial grasses, most lacking rhizomes, the inflorescence is a branching panicle, and the plant reaches about a meter in height. The plants are bisexual and the flowers are fleshy, with 3 anthers, some species have a prominent vein in the center of the leaf. Brachiaria are C4 species and can tolerate drier conditions and more exposure than some other plants. Brachiaria can grow in environments, from swamps to shady forest to semidesert. In Angola, B. brizantha grows on termite mounds and in the ecotone between grassland and woodland habitat, in the Kora National Reserve in Kenya, Brachiaria dominates the ground layer along with Aristida. In India, the native B. ramosa is an important food source for the Eurasian collared dove, in North America, the native B. platyphylla, broadleaf signalgrass, grows after heavy rains and then reproduces prodigiously and quickly, sometimes becoming a weed. Wide expanses of the tropics, especially the Neotropics, have converted to Brachiaria pasture to support livestock. In Brazil,80 million hectares of habitat have been planted with African grasses. Introduced species such as Brachiaria grasses can degrade habitat and compete with native species, in the Paragominas area of Brazil, however, native forest outcompetes cultivated stands of Brachiaria and other exotic forage grasses, and ranchers struggle to maintain pasture cover. Native species may also utilize exotic Brachiaria as a resource, such as the rock cavy. Brachiaria is the single most important genus of grass for pastures in the tropics. Brachiaria cultivars can grow in infertile and acidic soils, Brazil is the leading user and producer of Brachiaria seeds in the Americas
33.
Andropogoneae
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The Andropogoneae, sometimes called the sorghum tribe, are a large tribe of grasses with roughly 1,200 species in 90 genera, mainly distributed in tropical and subtropical areas. They include such important crops as maize, sugarcane, and sorghum, all species in this tribe use C4 carbon fixation, which makes them competitive under warm, high-light conditions. Andropogoneae is classified in supertribe Andropogonodae together with its sister group Arundinelleae, subdivisions include 12 subtribes, but the position of several genera within them is still unresolved. Hybridisation was probably important in the evolution of the Andropogoneae, and the tribes systematics is still not completely resolved
34.
Sorghum bicolor
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Sorghum originated in northern Africa, and is now cultivated widely in tropical and subtropical regions. Sorghum is the fifth most important cereal crop after rice, wheat, maize. S. bicolor is typically an annual, but some cultivars are perennial and it grows in clumps that may reach over 4 m high. The grain is small, ranging from 2 to 4 mm in diameter, sweet sorghums are sorghum cultivars that are primarily grown for foliage, syrup production, and ethanol, they are taller than those grown for grain. Sorghum bicolor is the species of sorghum, its wild relatives make up the botanical genus Sorghum. The leading producers of sorghum bicolor in 2011 were Nigeria, India, Mexico, Sorghum grows in a wide range of temperature, high altitudes, toxic soils and can recover growth after some drought. It has four features that make it one of the most drought-resistant crops, in times of drought, it will roll its leaves to lessen water loss by transpiration. If drought continues, it will go into dormancy rather than dying and its leaves are protected by a waxy cuticle. Sorghum is cultivated in parts of the world today. In the past 50 years, the planted with sorghum worldwide had increased 66%. In many parts of Asia and Africa, its grain is used to make breads that form the staple food of many cultures. The grains can also be popped in a fashion to popcorn. The species can be used as a source for making ethanol fuel and it typically has protein levels of around 9%, enabling dependent human populations to subsist on it in times of famine, in contrast to regions where maize has become the staple crop. It is also used for making a traditional corn broom, the reclaimed stalks of the sorghum plant are used to make a decorative millwork material marketed as Kirei board. Sweet sorghum syrup is known as molasses in some parts of the U. S. although it is not true molasses. In China, sorghum is known as gaoliang, and is fermented and distilled to one form of clear spirits known as baijiu 白酒 of which the most famous is Moutai. Sorghum was ground and the flour was the alternative to wheat in northern China for a long time. In India, where it is commonly called jwaarie, jowar, jola, or jondhahlaa, an Indian bread called Bhakri, jowar roti or jolada rotti, is prepared from this grain
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Job's tears
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Jobs tears or Jobs-tears, scientific name Coix lacryma-jobi, also known as coixseed, tear grass, hato mugi, adlay or adlai, is a tall grain-bearing perennial tropical plant of the family Poaceae. It is native to Southeast Asia but elsewhere is cultivated in gardens as an annual and it has been naturalized in the southern United States and the New World tropics. In its native environment it is grown in areas where rice. Jobs tears are commonly sold as Chinese pearl barley in Asian supermarkets. There are two varieties of the species, one wild and one cultivated. The wild variety, Coix lacryma-jobi var. lacryma-jobi, has hard-shelled pseudocarps—very hard, pearly white, oval structures used as beads for making rosaries, necklaces, the cultivated variety Coix lacryma-jobi var. Ma-yuen is harvested as a crop, has a soft shell. The species was named by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 with the epithet as a Latin translation of the tear of Job. As of February 2015, four varieties are accepted by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, widely distributed throughout the Asian subcontinent to peninsular Malaysia and Taiwan, naturalized elsewhere. South China to peninsular Malaysia and the Philippines, besides the use for ornamental purposes, Jobs tears grains are useful as a source of food and folk medicine. Throughout East Asia, Jobs tears are available in dried form, the grains are generally spherical, with a groove on one end, and polished white in color, though in Japan unpolished yuuki hatomugi, which is unpolished and brown in color, is also available. In Korea, a drink called yulmu cha is made from powdered Jobs tears. A similar drink, called Yi Ren Jiang, also appears in Chinese cuisine, the grains are usually strained from the liquid but may also be consumed separately or together. In both Korea and China, distilled liquors are also made from the grain, one such example is the South Korean liquor called okroju, which is made from rice and Jobs tears. An ancient Chinese beer recipe included the grain as an ingredient, in Japan, an aged vinegar is made from the grain. In southern Vietnam, a sweet, cold soup called sâm bổ lượng has Jobs Tears as one of its ingredients and this dish derives from the southern Chinese tong sui called qīng bǔ liáng. In Thailand, it is consumed in teas and other drinks. It is also used alongside other herbs in traditional Chinese medicine, a common folk story is that the corn beads sprang up along the path during the 1838 forced march of many Cherokees to Oklahoma from their southeastern North American homelands by the U. S. military
36.
Shennong
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Shennong, also known as the Wugushen or also Wuguxiandi, is a deity in Chinese religion, a mythical sage ruler of prehistoric China. Shennong has at times been counted amongst the Three Sovereigns, a group of deities or deified kings said to have lived some 4,500 years ago. Shennong has been thought to have taught the ancient Chinese not only their practices of agriculture, Shennong can also be taken to refer to his people, the Shennong-shi. Since shì can mean both clan and surname and serve as a masculine honorific like mister or sir, it is used in reference to his people. The Han Chinese regarded them both as their joint ancestors, the sacrifice of cows or oxen to Shennong in his various manifestations is never at all appropriate, instead pigs and sheep are acceptable. Fireworks and incense may also be used, especially at the appearance of his statue on his birthday, lunar April 26, under his various names, Shennong is the patron deity especially of farmers, rice traders, and practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine. Many temples and other dedicated to his commemoration exist. However, Shennong, both the individual and the clan, are important, in the history of culture—especially in regards to mythology. Indeed, Shennong figures extensively in historical literature, sima Qian mentions that the rulers directly preceding the Yellow Emperor were of the house of Shennong. Sima Zhen, who added a prologue for the Shiji, said his surname was Jiang, Shennong also features in the book popularly known in English as I Ching. Here, he is referenced as coming to power after the end of the house of Paoxi, also inventing a bent-wood plow, a rake, teaching these skills to others. Another reference is in the Lüshi Chunqiu, mentioning some violence with regard to the rise of the Shennong house, the Shénnóng Běn Cǎo Jīng is a book on agriculture and medicinal plants, attributed to Shennong. Research suggests that it is a compilation of traditions, written between about 200 and 250 AD. As noted above, Shennong is said in the Huainanzi to have tasted hundreds of herbs to test their medical value and this work lists the various medicinal herbs, such as lingzhi, that were discovered by Shennong and given grade and rarity ratings. It is considered to be the earliest Chinese pharmacopoeia, and includes 365 medicines derived from minerals, plants, Shennong is credited with identifying hundreds of medical herbs by personally testing their properties, which was crucial to the development of traditional Chinese medicine. Legend holds that Shennong had a transparent body, and thus could see the effects of different plants, Tea, which acts as an antidote against the poisonous effects of some seventy herbs, is also said to have been his discovery. Shennong first tasted it, traditionally in ca.2437 BC, from tea leaves on burning tea twigs, after they were carried up from the fire by the hot air, Shennong is venerated as the Father of Chinese medicine. He is also believed to have introduced the technique of acupuncture, Shennong is said to have played a part in the creation of the guqin, together with Fuxi and the Yellow Emperor
37.
Yajurveda
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The Yajurveda is the Veda of prose mantras. An ancient Vedic Sanskrit text, it is a compilation of ritual offering formulas that were said by a priest while an individual performed ritual actions such as those before the yajna fire, Yajurveda is one of the four Vedas, and one of the scriptures of Hinduism. The exact century of Yajurvedas composition is unknown, and estimated by scholars to be around 1200 to 1000 BCE, the Yajurveda is broadly grouped into two – the black Yajurveda and the white Yajurveda. The term black implies the un-arranged, unclear, motley collection of verses in Yajurveda, in contrast to the white which implies the well arranged, the black Yajurveda has survived in four recensions, while two recensions of white Yajurveda have survived into the modern times. The earliest and most ancient layer of Yajurveda samhita includes about 1,875 verses, the middle layer includes the Satapatha Brahmana, one of the largest Brahmana texts in the Vedic collection. The youngest layer of Yajurveda text includes the largest collection of primary Upanishads and these include the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the Isha Upanishad, the Taittiriya Upanishad, the Katha Upanishad, the Shvetashvatara Upanishad and the Maitri Upanishad. Yajurveda is a compound Sanskrit word, composed of yajus and veda, monier-Williams translates yajus as religious reverence, veneration, worship, sacrifice, a sacrificial prayer, formula, particularly mantras muttered in a peculiar manner at a sacrifice. Johnson states yajus means prose formulae or mantras, contained in the Yajur Veda, michael Witzel interprets Yajurveda to mean a knowledge text of prose mantras used in Vedic rituals. Ralph Griffith interprets the name to mean knowledge of sacrifice or sacrificial texts, carl Olson states that Yajurveda is a text of mantras that are repeated and used in rituals. The Yajurveda text includes Shukla Yajurveda of which about 16 recensions are known, only two recensions of the Shukla Yajurveda have survived, Madhyandina and Kanva, and others are known by name only because they are mentioned in other texts. These two recensions are nearly the same, except for few differences, in contrast to Shukla Yajurveda, the four surviving recensions of Krishna Yajurveda are very different versions. The samhita in the Shukla Yajurveda is called the Vajasaneyi Samhita, the name Vajasaneyi is derived from Vajasaneya, patronymic of sage Yajnavalkya, and the founder of the Vajasaneyi branch. There are two surviving recensions of the Vajasaneyi Samhita, Vajasaneyi Madhyandina and Vajasaneyi Kanva, there are four surviving recensions of the Krishna Yajurveda – Taittirīya saṃhitā, Maitrayani saṃhitā, Kaṭha saṃhitā and Kapiṣṭhala saṃhitā. A total of eighty six recensions are mentioned to exist in Vayu Purana, the Katha school is referred to as a sub-school of Carakas in some ancient texts of India, because they did their scholarship as they wandered from place to place. The best known and best preserved of these recensions is the Taittirīya saṃhitā, some attribute it to Tittiri, a pupil of Yaksa and mentioned by Panini. The text is associated with the Taittiriya school of the Yajurveda, the Kāṭhaka saṃhitā or the Caraka-Kaṭha saṃhitā, according to tradition was compiled by Katha, a disciple of Vaisampayana. Like the Maitrayani Samhita, it offers more detailed discussion of some rituals than the younger Taittiriya samhita that frequently summarizes such accounts. The Kapiṣṭhala saṃhitā or the Kapiṣṭhala-Kaṭha saṃhitā, named after the sage Kapisthala is extant only in some large fragments and this text is practically a variant of the Kāṭhaka saṃhitā
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Paleoethnobotany
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Paleoethnobotany or Archaeobotany, is the study of remains of plants cultivated or used by man in ancient times, which have survived in archaeological contexts. Paleoethnobotany is the archaeological sub-field that studies plant remains from archaeological sites, Plant macrofossils are preserved through four main modes of preservation at archaeological sites. First, plant remains, usually cereal grains, chaff, seeds and these are referred to as charred or carbonised plant remains. This mode of preservation is biased towards plant remains that come into contact with fire, through cooking or fuel use, Second, plant remains deposited in permanently waterlogged anoxic conditions are preserved as the absence of oxygen prohibits microbial activity. This mode of preservation occurs in deep archaeological features such as wells, in settlements where organic refuse is rapidly deposited. A wide range of plant remains are preserved, including seeds, fruit stones, nutshells, leaves, straw. Third, calcium-phosphate mineralisation of plant remains occurs usually in latrine pits and in middens, in latrine pits, plant remains which have been consumed by humans are the most common items, such as seeds of flavourings, fruit pips and fruit stones. Finally, plant remains are preserved by desiccation in arid environments, delicate vegetative plant remains are preserved, such as onion skin and artichoke bracts, alongside fruit stones, cereal chaff and seeds of wild plants. Paleoethnobotanists use a variety of methods to recover and identify plant remains, charred plant remains are usually recovered by flotation. The matrix is slowly added to agitated water, the soil, sand, and other heavy material, known as heavy fraction, will sink to the bottom. The less dense material such as charred seeds, grains. The material that floats to the top, called light fraction, is poured into a sieve, the light fraction is then dried and later examined under a low power microscope. Samples of the fraction are also gathered for later analysis. Flotation can be undertaken manually with buckets, or by machine-assisted flotation where water is circulated through a series of tanks by a pump, waterlogged plant remains are separated from the matrix by a combination of wet-sieving and/or small-scale flotation in a laboratory. Desiccated plant remains are recovered by dry-sieving, using a stack of different sieves to separate larger items such as cereal straw. Identification literature as well as a collection of modern plant materials are crucial for reliable results. Depending on the type of material, and its condition, also other methods such as sections or SEM are applied. Paleoethnobotanists also recover and analyze microremains, human and animal excrements, or plant impressions in ceramic sherds, palynology is a mature and distinct scientific discipline that studies pollen, typically in the context of reconstructing past environments
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Prehistory
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Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
40.
Rice
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Rice is the seed of the grass species Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima. As a cereal grain, it is the most widely consumed staple food for a part of the worlds human population. It is the agricultural commodity with the third-highest worldwide production, after sugarcane and maize, wild rice, from which the crop was developed, may have its native range in Australia. Chinese legends attribute the domestication of rice to Shennong, the emperor of China. Genetic evidence has shown that rice originates from a single domestication 8, previously, archaeological evidence had suggested that rice was domesticated in the Yangtze River valley region in China. From East Asia, rice was spread to Southeast and South Asia, Rice was introduced to Europe through Western Asia, and to the Americas through European colonization. There are many varieties of rice and culinary preferences tend to vary regionally, in some areas such as the Far East or Spain, there is a preference for softer and stickier varieties. Rice, a monocot, is grown as an annual plant, although in tropical areas it can survive as a perennial. The rice plant can grow to 1–1.8 m tall, occasionally more depending on the variety and it has long, slender leaves 50–100 cm long and 2–2.5 cm broad. The small wind-pollinated flowers are produced in a branched arching to pendulous inflorescence 30–50 cm long, the edible seed is a grain 5–12 mm long and 2–3 mm thick. Rice cultivation is well-suited to countries and regions with low costs and high rainfall, as it is labor-intensive to cultivate. However, rice can be grown practically anywhere, even on a hill or mountain area with the use of water-controlling terrace systems. Although its parent species are native to Asia and certain parts of Africa, centuries of trade, the traditional method for cultivating rice is flooding the fields while, or after, setting the young seedlings. The name wild rice is used for species of the genera Zizania and Porteresia. The Greek word is the source of all European words, the origin of the Greek word is unclear. It is sometimes held to be from the Tamil word அரிசி, however, Krishnamurti disagrees with the notion that Old Tamil arici is the source of the Greek term, and proposes that it was borrowed from descendants of Proto-Dravidian *wariñci instead. The varieties of rice are typically classified as long-, medium-, the grains of long-grain rice tend to remain intact after cooking, medium-grain rice becomes more sticky. Medium-grain rice is used for dishes, for risotto in Italy
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Neolithic
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It ended when metal tools became widespread. The Neolithic is a progression of behavioral and cultural characteristics and changes, including the use of wild and domestic crops, the beginning of the Neolithic culture is considered to be in the Levant about 10, 200–8800 BC. It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture in the region, whose people pioneered the use of wild cereals, which then evolved into true farming. The Natufian period was between 12,000 and 10,200 BC, and the so-called proto-Neolithic is now included in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic between 10,200 and 8800 BC. By 10, 200–8800 BC, farming communities arose in the Levant and spread to Asia Minor, North Africa, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. Early Neolithic farming was limited to a range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt, and the keeping of dogs, sheep. By about 6900–6400 BC, it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order, the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery. Early Japanese societies and other East Asian cultures used pottery before developing agriculture, unlike the Paleolithic, when more than one human species existed, only one human species reached the Neolithic. The term Neolithic derives from the Greek νέος néos, new and λίθος líthos, stone, the term was invented by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. In the Middle East, cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th millennium BC, early development occurred in the Levant and from there spread eastwards and westwards. Neolithic cultures are attested in southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia by around 8000 BC. The total excavated area is more than 1,200 square yards, the Neolithic 1 period began roughly 10,000 years ago in the Levant. A temple area in southeastern Turkey at Göbekli Tepe dated around 9500 BC may be regarded as the beginning of the period. This site was developed by nomadic tribes, evidenced by the lack of permanent housing in the vicinity. At least seven stone circles, covering 25 acres, contain limestone pillars carved with animals, insects, Stone tools were used by perhaps as many as hundreds of people to create the pillars, which might have supported roofs. Other early PPNA sites dating to around 9500–9000 BC have been found in Jericho, Israel, Gilgal in the Jordan Valley, the start of Neolithic 1 overlaps the Tahunian and Heavy Neolithic periods to some degree. The major advance of Neolithic 1 was true farming, in the proto-Neolithic Natufian cultures, wild cereals were harvested, and perhaps early seed selection and re-seeding occurred. The grain was ground into flour, emmer wheat was domesticated, and animals were herded and domesticated
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"Millet". Encyclopædia Britannica. 18 (11th ed.). 1911.
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