Barley Month – February 2025

History of Barley Month

Barley was one of the first domesticated grains in the Fertile Crescent, an area of relatively abundant water in Western Asia, close to the Nile river of northeast Africa. Barley appeared at the same time as einkorn and emmer wheat. Wild barley commonly grows in North Africa and Crete in the west, all the way to Tibet in the east. The earliest known archeological evidence of wild barley consumption is from the Epipaleolithic at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, where grinding stones with traces of starch were found. The remains were dated to about 23,000 B.C.

The earliest evidence of the domestication of barley as cultivars incapable of reproduction without human assistance comes from Mesopotamia, specifically the Jarmo region of what is now modern-day Iraq, sometime between 9000 B.C. and 7000 B.C. Barley being one of the most important crops in the world, it was domesticated in the Near East around 11,000 years ago (about 9000 B.C.). It is a highly resilient crop that can be cultivated in varied and marginal environments, such as in regions of high altitude and latitude.

Archeo-botanical evidence shows that by 2000 B.C., barley had spread throughout Eurasia. To further explicate the routes via which the cultivation of barley was spread through Eurasia, genetic analysis was used to determine the genetic diversity and population structure in existing barley taxa. The result of this analysis shows that cultivated barley spread through Eurasia via several different routes, which were most likely separated in both time and space. In medieval Europe, barley was not regarded highly and food such as bread made from barley and rye was considered peasant food, while the upper class consumed wheat products. Potatoes largely replaced barley in Eastern Europe during the 19th century.