ABSTRACT
In common with some other grass species, all wheats have a single botanical characteristic which significantly differentiates them from the majority of other flowering plants: they are fully self-pollinated (selfing) as opposed to cross pollinated. This chapter considers the process of becoming Australian wheat. This is both a spatial process, involving global movements and transplantations, and a genetic one, as new Australian wheat varieties were bred in situ. The chapter illustrates that human-wheat relations are in an ongoing state of change as well as continuity; this becoming is simultaneously a spatial and temporal process. The history of wheat domestication continues to be refined over time with the development of modern genetics and DNA characterisation, and advances in archaeology and carbon dating techniques. Grasses, known botanically as Poaceae and as monocots, make up the largest family of angiosperms. Research on faunal fossil assemblages and climatic modelling suggests that grasses played a critical role in the evolution of modern humans.
