Article

The ancestry of broad bean Vicia Faba, one of the most important cultivated legumes, baffled scholars for many years. Until some half-century ago only meager evidence of charred broad bean was unearthed in archaeological excavations. A living putative wild progenitor has been remained obscured. During the last five decades significant archaeobotanical evidence from the Mediterranean basin was accumulated, illuminating the importance of this legume at the dawn of agriculture. Several recent excavations in the Near East revealed large quantities of Neolithic broad bean, suggesting that it was an important part of the crop assemblage of the early farmers some 10,000 years ago. Also, charred seeds found recently suggest that pre-agricultural huntergatherers used the same species before its cultivation as early as 14,000 years ago, hence revealing the wild ancestry of this crop