Wheat diversity and domestication in volcanic Cappadocia: Exploring human-plant interactions and their ecological contexts at the dawn of agriculture in western Asia

Early plant management and domestication have shaped the history of humanity and the evolution of socio-economic systems. Domestication processes, involving variable rates of selection over several millennia across different geographies in western Asia, resulted in complex phenotypical and genetic alterations in crop plants, while influencing new economic practices among human populations. Yet, the data for the nature of early agriculture and human-derived dynamics entangled in the selection of domestication traits is still limited. What practices did early management systems involve and how did these influence crop diversity and the protracted, non-linear selection of traits? To find answers, the WHEADCAP project focuses on one of the oldest groups of crop plants, wheats (Triticum spp.), and the archaeobotanical assemblages from three early Neolithic communities (9th-8th millennium cal. BCE) in volcanic Cappadocia, Central Anatolia (Türkiye). A rich phenotypic diversity characterises these assemblages, including the globally oldest known in situ domestication process of several wheat species. The project aims to integrate two cutting-edge methodologies to detect patterns conventional approaches cannot unveil. First, WHEADCAP will develop new Geometric Morphometric models to disentangle the high taxonomic and phenotypic diversity within the early wheat populations and to reconstruct the evolution of domesticated forms of wheats in a specific geographical context. Functional Weed Ecology will then be applied at the Secondment to assess past crop growing conditions and management practices, revealing the ecological context of the domestication and selection processes. While reshaping our perspectives on agricultural origins and contributing to my professional career through new scientific skills, the project will also provide novel and widely applicable models to study human-plant interactions and domestication at the onset of agriculture in western Asia and beyond.