A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) confirms Georgia as the oldest independent and documented center of origin of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum).
The article, titled “An Independent Center for the Origin of Bread Wheat in the Neolithic Period of Georgia in the South Caucasus”, is based on an international multidisciplinary study led by Academician David Lortkipanidze.
It draws on 8,000-year-old archaeological material excavated in the Shulaveri Hills in Georgia, alongside long-term research by paleoethnobotanist Professor Nana Rusishvili.
Radiocarbon dating carried out at the Weizmann Institute in Israel confirmed that the Neolithic material found in Georgia represents the oldest known physical evidence of bread wheat in the world.
Co-authors of the study include Georgian and international researchers, among them Mindia Jalabadze, Inga Martkoplishvili, Marine Mosulishvili, Nana Meladze, David Maghradze, Elisabetta Boaretto and Steven Batiuk.
The research was conducted under the “Wine and Vine Research and Popularization” project of the Ministry of Culture of Georgia and the National Wine Agency, with support from the University of Toronto, the Weizmann Institute and the Society Iveria.
