Early crop diversity: a "new" glume wheat from northern Greece

At three Neolithic sites and one Bronze Age site in northern Greece, spikelet bases of a "new" type of glume wheat have been recovered. These spikelet bases are morphologically distinct from the typical Triticum monococcum L. (einkorn), T. dicoccum Schubl. (emmer) and T. spelta L. (spelt) types previously recorded from Greece and they have also been observed at Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in Turkey, Hungary, Austria and Germany. Their taxonomic identification remains uncertain but it seems likely that they are tetraploid, and they have morphological features in common with T. timopheevi Zhuk. Various possibilities exist for the origin of this type but, whatever its origin and exact identity, its cultivation has ceased over large geographical areas since the Bronze Age. At the northern Greek sites, at least, the new type may have been cultivated as a maslin (mixed crop) with einkorn.