Posted on 06/30/2006 12:22:26 PM PDT by furball4paws
Early Fig Farming
Scientists tracing the origins of agriculture have followed the trail of cultivated grains like wheat and barley back to about 10,500 years ago in the Near East . Now a new study reported in the 2 Jun 2006 Science suggests that fig trees could have been the first domesticated crop, preceding cereals by about a thousand years. Kislev et al. ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/312/5778/1372) described the remains of figs found in several archaeological sites in the Jordan Valley as early as about 11,400 years ago. The carbonized fruits represent a variety of fig in which the fruit forms and ripens without pollination (a developmental process called parthenocarpy). Parthenocarpy results from a single rare mutation, but because these trees do not produce germinative seeds, they are reproductive "dead ends" -- unless humans interfere by replanting the tree shoots to propagate them. The abundance of parthenocarpic figs in the ancient remains implies that this was indeed the case and thus provides early evidence for fig horticulture via vegetative propagation. An accompanying News story by A. Gibbons ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/312/5778/1292a) highlighted the Report.
Older than 6000 years pong.
I should not have clicked on this. I don't give a fig.
I thought Adam and Eve just pulled the leaves from the trees.
Well, yeah, Adam and Eve had to grow something to wear. Adam, does this leaf make me look fat?...........
"Adam, does this leaf make me look fat?..........."
"No, dear, all those figs you eat make you look fat."
Well, at least she couldn't claim she had her mother's thighs.......
I'm shocked! This is so startling that I'll ping a few (but not the whole list, as this isn't really an evolution issue).
I just don't like threads built around words that contain the word carp in them . . . |
Well, if the first agiculture was figs then the first architecture was outhouses.
Don't worry. There is no bad news for the YECs. They got it all lawyered. All the evidence against them is no good.
Certainly would taste better.
Oh, well!
Dawkins' "Climbing Mt. Improbable" starts off by quoting some humanities type who claims that the fruit in the Garden of Eden story should be a fig, not the traditional apple.
"A Brazilian-American archeological team believed terra preta, which may cover 10 percent of Amazonia, was the product of intense habitation by Amerindian populations who flourished in the area for two millennia, but they recently unearthed evidence that societies lived and farmed in the area up to 11,000 years ago."
Now, the real question is: "If man has been propagating figs for almost 12,000 years and the Earth is only 6000 years old - how can that be?" The only answer I can come up with is that for the first 6000 years the cultivation was hydroponically on the space ship coming from Alpha Centauri. One day the Earth just popped into view from nothing in front of them and they settled down. Thus we have ID and YEC all wrapped up in one neat (but ludicrous) package.
As long as they are wrapped up...tight.
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