Friday, March 06, 2015

History of chickpea

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is the only cultivated species belonging to the Cicer genus, which is a member of the Leguminosae family Cicereae Alef tribe.

Chickpea was domesticated in association with other crops of wheat, barley, rye, peas, lentil, flax and vetch and with sheep, goats, pigs and cattle as part of the evolution of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent 12,000 – 10,000 years ago.

The chickpea is known from Bronze Age Lachish, Jericho and Arqd sites in the Near East.

The earliest records of chickpea used as food are:8th millennium BC at Tell el-Kerkh and Tell Abu Hureyra Syria, 7500 – 6800 BC at Cayonu Turkey and 5450 at Hachilar Turkey.

The chickpea remnants found in excavation at Hachilar, Turkey indicating that chickpea was being eaten by man during early Neolithic period.

The chickpea spread from there to the Mediterranean area by 6000 BC and to Indian by 3000 BC.

Greeks knew the chickpea in Homer’s time under the name Erebinthus and the Romans, as Cicer. Romans used to call it as Cicer because of resemblance of its seed to the head of ram.

It was carried to the New World, particularly South America, by the Spaniards and the Portuguese in the 16th century.
History of chickpea

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