ABSTRACT

In the regions of South-west Asia and south-east Europe where there is the earliest archaeological evidence for the cultivation of grain crops in the temperate Old World, mechanized farming has largely replaced traditional technology. Here, in the 1970s and 1980s, some important pioneer documentation was undertaken of the cultivation and processing by traditional methods of cereals, and to a lesser extent pulses. Nevertheless, further data is needed for the interpretation of archaeobotanical remains, but today it is becoming increasingly difficult to find and observe any relatively unmechanized agriculture in these key regions.