8,000-year-old wheat imprint in Georgia reshapes origins of bread wheat, scientists say

It’s a staple food for many cultures around the world. But how did humans determine that grass seeds had the potential to become bread?

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A new study suggests that bread wheat likely emerged around 8,000 years ago in the South Caucasus region, through a natural hybridisation process involving already domesticated wheat and a wild grass species.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), are based on archaeological work carried out by the Georgian National Museum at the ancient settlements of Gadachrili Gora and Shulaveris Gora, which date back to the Neolithic period.

Excavations at these sites uncovered key botanical evidence, including wheat spike impressions preserved in ancient mudbrick and plant remains that point to early agricultural experimentation.

Gadachrili Gora and Shulaveris Gora are part of the Shulaveri–Shomutepe cultural tradition, which developed in the South Caucasus - spanning southeastern Georgia, western Azerbaijan, and northern Armenia - about 8,000 to 7,300 years ago.

David Lordkipanidze, Director of Georgia’s National Museum, says the discovery shows Georgians were among the first farmers.

“Here we have 8,000 years of traces of bread wheat, as well as we found here some years ago 8,000 years of traces of wine making. So, we can say for sure that here in Georgia, we discovered traces of bread wheat and winemaking, which dates back 8,000 years," he says.

Archaeological and genetic studies have shown that this region was home to early farming communities that cultivated a wide variety of crops.

Nana Rusishvili, a paleoethnobotanist at Georgia’s National Museum, has been studying archaeobotanical material from Gadachrili Gora for decades. She notes that the samples show evidence that early domesticated wheat crossed with a wild grass species known as Aegilops tauschii.

“This gives us the possibility to prove that on the Georgian territory, the bread wheat has been originated and as a result, Georgia is one of the centers of bread wheat domestication," she says.

The discovery is even more interesting considering that the same region is also regarded as the birthplace of wine.

Melinda Zeder, an archaeologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, says the new study makes it possible to better understand how the domestication process unfolded.

Zeder notes that the study shows early farmers in the South Caucasus were in contact with neighbouring regions, gaining knowledge but adapting it to local climate and environmental conditions.

“So this really makes the invention of this bread wheat a product of that kind of inventiveness, innovation, on the part of the indigenous people in the South Caucasus that were drawing on those technologies,” Zeder says.

The Caucasus and Georgia form part of what is known as the Fertile Crescent - a swathe of fertile land stretching from Upper Egypt to Mesopotamia, now modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, and northeast Syria.

Often referred to as the “Cradle of Civilization,” it is believed to be the birthplace of early agriculture and modern human civilizations.