File:Agricultural and botanical explorations in Palestine (1910) (17943963875).jpg

Title: Agricultural and botanical explorations in Palestine
Identifier: agriculturalbota180aaro (find matches)
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Aaronsohn, Aaron, 1876-1919; United States. Department of Agriculture; United States. Bureau of Plant Industry; United States. Government Printing Office
Subjects: Agriculture; Botany
Publisher: Washington, Govt. Print. Off.
Contributing Library: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library
Digitizing Sponsor: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library

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EEDISCOVEBY OF WILD EMMER IN PALESTINE AND SYRIA. 47 At this latter visit the hills which bordered the AVady Waleh were so abundantly covered with wild barley that they and the valleys looked like fields of cereals sown irregularly and infested with weeds. I tried to picture in my mind the life of our prehistoric ancestors who lived on the banks of this delightful wadi (canyon). I believe, as does Eduard Hahn, that our ancestors were not exclusively hunters and shepherds, as they are generally supposed to have been. The)7 were without doubt chiefly vegetarians, and in this region, where the growing season is very short, they must have learned at a very early date to gather and preserve grain. Their life here must have been a comparatively enviable one. The negroes of Africa are com- pelled to make bread from a species of Pennisetum and from certain
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Fig. 12.—Monolith in Wady Waleh. At its foot paleolithic or eolithic flint implements were found. Wild wheat and barley were found on the hills in the background. Poas, which are very hard to harvest; the peoples of the Sahara with great labor secure a coarse bread from the seeds of Panicum turgidum and of Aristida pungens, which latter is even in our day an article of commerce; the Touaregs live on the seeds of different Diplotaxis, Eruca sativa, Senebiera lepidoides, and other crucifiers; the Tibbus, of Siwah, live on bread made from the seeds of colocynth.a When we think of what these and other peoples of our own day have to use for food, we must acknowledge that the prehistoric inhabitants of the valleys and plateaus of the Trans-Jordan were to be envied when they had Hordeum spontaneum and, as we anticipated. Triticum dicoccum dicoccoides also in abundance. (See PL IX, figs. 1 and 2.) aSee Duveyrier, Les Touaregs du Nord, p. 204; P. Soleillet, L'Afrique Occi- dentals, p. 177; and Nachtigal, Sahara und Sudan, vol. 1, p. 249. 180

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