We know of several such nuclear areas. In the New World, Middle America and the Andean highlands make up one or two; it is my understanding that the evidence is not yet clear as to which. There seems to have been a nuclear area somewhere in southeastern Asia, in the Malay peninsula or Burma perhaps, connected with the early cultivation of taro, breadfruit, the banana and the mango. Possibly the cultivation of rice and the domestication of the chicken and of zebu cattle and the water buffalo belong to this southeast Asiatic nuclear area. We know relatively little about it archeologically, as yet. The nuclear area which was the scene of the earliest experiment in effective food-production was in western Asia. Since I know it best, I shall use it as my example.
THE NUCLEAR NEAR EAST
The nuclear area of western Asia is naturally the one of greatest interest to people of the western cultural tradition. Our cultural heritage began within it. The area itself is the region of the hilly flanks of rain-watered grass-land which build up to the high mountain ridges of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Palestine. The map on page 125 indicates the region. If you have a good atlas, try to locate the zone which surrounds the drainage basin of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers at elevations of from approximately 2,000 to 5,000 feet. The lower alluvial land of the Tigris-Euphrates basin itself has very little rainfall. Some years ago Professor James Henry Breasted called the alluvial lands of the Tigris-Euphrates a part of the “fertile crescent.” These alluvial lands are very fertile if irrigated. Breasted was most interested in the oriental civilizations of conventional ancient history, and irrigation had been discovered before they appeared.
The country of hilly flanks above Breasted’s crescent receives from 10 to 20 or more inches of winter rainfall each year, which is about what Kansas has. Above the hilly-flanks zone tower the peaks and ridges of the Lebanon-Amanus chain bordering the coast-line from Palestine to Turkey, the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey, and the Zagros range of the Iraq-Iran borderland. This rugged mountain frame for our hilly-flanks zone rises to some magnificent alpine scenery, with peaks of from ten to fifteen thousand feet in elevation. There are several gaps in the Mediterranean coastal portion of the frame, through which the winter’s rain-bearing winds from the sea may break so as to carry rain to the foothills of the Taurus and the Zagros.
The picture I hope you will have from this description is that of an intermediate hilly-flanks zone lying between two regions of extremes. The lower Tigris-Euphrates basin land is low and far too dry and hot for agriculture based on rainfall alone; to the south and southwest, it merges directly into the great desert of Arabia. The mountains which lie above the hilly-flanks zone are much too high and rugged to have encouraged farmers.
THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE NUCLEAR NEAR EAST
The more we learn of this hilly-flanks zone that I describe, the more it seems surely to have been a nuclear area. This is where we archeologists need, and are beginning to get, the help of natural scientists. They are coming to the conclusion that the natural environment of the hilly-flanks zone today is much as it was some eight to ten thousand years ago. There are still two kinds of wild wheat and a wild barley, and the wild sheep, goat, and pig. We have discovered traces of each of these at about nine thousand years ago, also traces of wild ox, horse, and dog, each of which appears to be the probable ancestor of the domesticated form. In fact, at about nine thousand years ago, the two wheats, the barley, and at least the goat, were already well on the road to domestication.
The wild wheats give us an interesting clue. They are only available together with the wild barley within the hilly-flanks zone. While the wild barley grows in a variety of elevations and beyond the zone, at least one of the wild wheats does not seem to grow below the hill country. As things look at the moment, the domestication of both the wheats together could only have taken place within the hilly-flanks zone. Barley seems to have first come into cultivation due to its presence as a weed in already cultivated wheat fields. There is also a suggestion—there is still much more to learn in the matter—that the animals which were first domesticated were most at home up in the hilly-flanks zone in their wild state.
With a single exception—that of the dog—the earliest positive evidence of domestication includes the two forms of wheat, the barley, and the goat. The evidence comes from within the hilly-flanks zone. However, it comes from a settled village proper, Jarmo (which I’ll describe in the next chapter), and is thus from the era of the primary village-farming community. We are still without positive evidence of domesticated grain and animals in the first era of the food-producing stage, that of incipient cultivation and animal domestication.