Fertile Crescent

Mesolithic 5,000,000 First farming in the Fertile Crescent Domestication of sheep, goats and cattle Beginnings of soil erosion in the Middle East which spread with farming to North Africa and Europe... 

Falseflax is a self-pollinating oilseed crop, rarely used for food, which originates from the Fertile Crescent This is also being developed as a sprout-based production platform by UniCrop Ltd, Helsinki, Finland (Chapter 3). 

The Middle Eastern traditions stem from the ancient civilizations of the area known as the Fertile Crescent. This area stretches from the eastern Mediterranean coast that is now part of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, to the fertile lands that exist between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as they flow to the Persian Gulf. To the ancient Greeks this eastern end was known as Mesopotamia and it is now part of Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. Unlike Egypt, with its insular and stable culture, the Fertile Crescent was inhabited by several cultures, which migrated, conquered, and merged over the centuries. 

During this period, sometime between 2000 and 1825 b.c.e., the patriarch of the Hebrew people, Abraham, left the Babylonian city of Ur and brought his people to the other end of the Fertile Crescent, to what is now Israel. There they founded a religion that focused on their one tribal god to the exclusion of all others. This was the beginning of the monotheistic biblical tradition that led to the creation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. 

Most of the crude oil currently recovered is produced from underground reservoirs. However, surface seepage of crude oil and natural gas is common in many regions. In fact, it is the surface seepage of oil that led to the first use of the high boiling material (bitumen) in the Fertile Crescent. It may also be stated that the presence of active seeps in an area is evidence that oil and gas is still migrating. 

Wheat (see Chapter 10) is the number one food grain consumed by humans, and its production leads all crops, including rice and com. Wheat is a cool-season crop, but it flourishes in many different agroclimate zones. It is believed to have originated in the fertile crescent of the Middle East, where radiocarbon dating places samples at, or before, 6700 bce, with wheat grains existing in the Neolithic site of Jamo, Northern Iraq.3... 

Eventually, humans began to settle in areas where food grew most abundantly, like the Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia. They learned how to plant and harvest various crops in a predictable pattern. They tended and raised animals like chickens and pigs, who were then slaughtered and eaten. 

NAA is commonly used in studies of obsidian. The sources of obsidian in Southwest Asia, the Mediterranean, North America, Mexico, and elsewhere have been examined using NAA. Most of the obsidian in Southwest Asia comes from sources either in the mountains of Turkey or in northern Iran, both outside the Fertile Crescent. The graph below shows the results of the NAA measurement of the elements iron (Fe) and scandium (Sc) in obsidian in Southwest Asia (Fig. 8.10). Samples were also taken from the original sources. There are clear differences among most of the sources. 

Brown TA, Jones MK, Powell W,AUaby RG.The complex origins of domesticated crops in the fertile crescent. Trends Ecol Evol February 24, 2009 2 103-9. 

The next oldest sites of agriculture, which date to ab)out 8000 B.C., are those in the Middle East, in the region commonly referred to eis the Fertile Crescent, a broad arc of land... 

Fertile Crescent Region of the world considered the cradle of agriculture and cereal production, located in southwest Asia or the Near East and currently embraced by Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkmenistan. 

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