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The founder crops or primary domesticates are a group of flowering plants that were Domestication by early farming communities in Southwest Asia and went on to form the basis of agriculture economies across Eurasia. As originally defined by Daniel Zohary and Maria Hopf, they consisted of three (Emmer, einkorn wheat, and barley), four pulses (lentil, pea, chickpea, and Vicia ervilia), and flax. Subsequent research has indicated that many other species could be considered founder crops. These species were amongst the first domesticated plants in the world.
Different species formed the basis of early agricultural economies in other Vavilov center. For example, rice was first cultivated in the Yangtze River basin of East Asia in the early Neolithic."New Archaeobotanic Data for the Study of the Origins of Agriculture in China", Zhijun Zhao, Current Anthropology Vol. 52, No. S4, (October 2011), pp. S295-S306 Sorghum was widely cultivated in sub-Saharan Africa during the early Neolithic, while peanuts, squash, and cassava were domesticated in the Americas.
Wild einkorn wheat ( Triticum monococcum subsp. boeoticum) grows across Southwest Asia in open Forest steppe and steppe environments. It comprises three distinct races, only one of which, native to Southeast Anatolia, was domesticated. The main feature that distinguishes domestic einkorn from wild is that its ears will not shatter without pressure, making it dependent on humans for dispersal and reproduction. It also tends to have wider grains. Wild einkorn was collected at Epipalaeolithic sites such as Tell Abu Hureyra () and Mureybet (), but the earliest archaeological evidence for the domestic form comes from the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of southern Turkey, at Çayönü, Cafer Höyük, and possibly Nevalı Çori. Genetic evidence indicates that it was domesticated in multiple places independently.
Wild emmer wheat ( Triticum turgidum subsp. dicoccoides) is less widespread than einkorn, favouring the rocky and limestone soils found in the Hilly Flanks of the Fertile Crescent. It is also more diverse, with domesticated varieties falling into two major groups: hulled or non-shattering, in which threshing separates the whole spikelet; and free-threshing, where the individual grains are separated. Both varieties probably existed in the Neolithic, but over time free-threshing cultivars became more common. Genetic studies have found that, like einkorn, emmer was domesticated in southeastern Anatolia, but only once. The earliest secure archaeological evidence for domestic emmer comes from the early PPNB levels at Çayönü, , where distinctive scars on the spikelets indicated that they came from a hulled domestic variety. Slightly earlier finds have been reported from Tell Aswad in Syria, , but these were identified using a less reliable method based on grain size.
Wild barley ( Hordeum spontaneum) is more widely distributed than either wheat species, growing across the Eastern Mediterranean, Southwest Asia, and as far east as Tibet, but is most common in the Fertile Crescent. Its tolerance for dry conditions and poor soils allows it to thrive in arid steppe and desert environments. Wild barley has two rows of spikelets, Husk grains, and a brittle rachis; domestication produced, successively, non-brittle, naked (hulless), and then six-rowed forms. Genetic evidence indicates that it was first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent, probably in the Levant, though there may have been independent domestication events elsewhere. Wild barley was harvested in Southwest Asia as long as 50,000 years ago at Kebara Cave, and 23,000 years ago at Ohalo II. At Gilgal I, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site in Israel dated to , archaeologists discovered a large granary containing thousands of wild barley grains, providing direct evidence for the cultivation of a cereal before it was domesticated. The earliest known remains of domesticated two-row barley come from Tell Aswad and are . Six-rowed barley is first seen at Çatalhöyük, , and naked varieties at Hacilar, .
As of 2018, many scholars disagreed with the "founder notion". In 2012, scholars suggested that there were likely more than just 8 "founder crops", including 16 or 17 different species of cereals and legumes and figs. Larger DNA data sets and better analytical techniques suggest a more complex picture. In 2000, a "new" glume wheat (NGW), a type of cultivated wheat which existed across western Asia and Europe was found in archeological sites of Hungary, then Turkey and in 2023 in Bavaria, Germany.
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