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What evidence of early grain harvesting was found at Ohalo II in Israel?
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Origins of agriculture
Harvesting wheat on a farm in the grain belt near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. A potash mine appears in the distant background.
At the Ohalo II site in Israel, which dates to approximately 23,000 bp, archaeological evidence indicates that a small group of Upper Paleolithic people lived in brush shelters and engaged in the intensive harvesting of a wide range of wild grass seeds and other plant foods. This activity occurred well before the Epipaleolithic Period and represents an early instance of human reliance on wild grain resources.1