Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Domestication of Plants in the Old World: The Origin and Spread of
Domesticated Plants in South-West Asia, Europe, and the Mediterra-
nean Basin
. The syntheses arrived at by the authors for so many
domesticated species are most enlightening and make the reader com-
prehend that domestication and the rise of agriculture were not merely
chance events, but rather the products of predictable interactions
between ancient humans and the plant species around them.
The seven major chapters of the topic (4th edition) are entitled
“
Cere-
als,
”“
Pulses,
”“
Oil- and Fibre-Producing Crops,
”“
Fruit Trees and Nuts,
”
“
(dye plants). A
detailed section is presented on each domesticated species. Thus, in the
chapter dealing with pulses, there are separate sections on lentil, pea,
chickpea, faba bean, bitter vetch, common vetch, grass pea, Spanish
vetchling, fenugreek, and lupins. Preceding the major chapters of the
topic, there are two important introductory chapters. The
Vegetables and Tubers,
”“
Condiments,
”
and
“
Dry Crops
”
first is entitled
“
Current State of the Art
”
and consists of a summary of the
ndings and of
the authors
views on plant domestication. The second chapter presents
the methodologies used to study plant domestication.
These chapters give a detailed analysis of archaeological
'
findings
and of studies of present-day domesticated plants and their wild
progenitors; the studies employ methods of genetics and cytogenetics,
DNA marker variation, and geographical distribution of the supposed
progenitors in relation to the archaeological sites in which domesti-
cated plant remains were found. The last chapter of the topic summa-
rizes the information on domesticated plant remains retrieved from
individual Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in the Mediterranean and
European areas. All in all, it is a very important topic in the
field of
plant domestication, which will be used by researchers in the
field for a
long time to come.
VI. AWARDS, HONORS, AND RECOGNITION
Danny has always been fully devoted to his research and scienti
c work.
He was appointed Lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in
1956, rose through the ranks and became Professor of Genetics in 1969,
and retired in 1997. He was elected Chairman of the Institute of
Life Sciences at the Hebrew University and served for a brief period
(1979
1983), but did not really enjoy this largely administrative role.
Zohary was not after prizes and awards, although he received the
J. Belling Award in Genetics from the University of California, Berkeley
(1959), and was elected Distinguished Economic Botanist by the
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