In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari states that 10,000 years ago wheat was merely a wild grass which was found in some regions of the Middle East. But in the last few thousand years, wheat has spread so much all across the world that now, wheat occupies 2.25 million square kilometers of the earth’s surface. Homo Erectus, who were the ancestors of humans. They were living comfortably for 2 million years without farming.
When the domestication of wheat began around 8000 BC, Homo Sapiens were also living comfortably for 200,000 years without farming. But because of wheat, we cut down trees, started farming, and we made clear fields because wheat didn’t like stones and rocky area. We removed different weed plants from the fields because wheat did not like them. We brought buckets full of water from the rivers to irrigate the fields because wheat needed a lot of water to grow.
We used new techniques to drive away insects and pests because wheat did not like insects and pests. Natural insecticides were first used about 4,500 years ago by the Sumerians, who used sulfur compounds to drive away insects and pests during farming. Yuval Noah Harari says in his book that when humans started domesticating wheat it was wheat that domesticated humans because humans changed their lives to farm.
Also Read : The Bhopal Gas Leak, Who Were Railway Men?
