Editing Tell Abu Hureyra (section)

== Transition from foraging to farming ==
Some evidence has been found for cultivation of [[rye]] from 11050 BCE<ref name="Moore2000" /> in the sudden rise of pollen from weed plants that typically infest newly disturbed soil. Peter Akkermans and Glenn Schwartz found this claim about epipaleolithic rye, "difficult to reconcile with the absence of cultivated cereals at Abu Hureyra and elsewhere for thousands of years afterwards".<ref name="AkkermansSchwartz2003">{{cite book|author1=Peter M. M. G. Akkermans|author2=Glenn M. Schwartz|title=The archaeology of Syria: from complex hunter-gatherers to early urban societies (c. 16,000–300 BC)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_4oqvpAHDEoC&pg=PA72|access-date=27 June 2011|year=2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-79666-8|pages=72–}}</ref> It could have been an early experiment that didn't survive and continue. It has been suggested that drier climate conditions resulting from the beginning of the Younger Dryas caused wild cereals to become scarce, leading people to begin cultivation as a means of securing a food supply. Results of recent analysis of the rye grains from this level suggest that they may actually have been domesticated during the Epipalaeolithic. It is speculated that the permanent population of the first occupation was fewer than 200 individuals.<ref name='foodfuel'>{{cite journal |last=Hillman |first=Gordon C. |author2=A. J. Legge |author3=P. A. Rowle-Conwy | year=1997 |title=On the Charred Seeds from Epipalaeolithic Abu Hureyra: Food or Fuel? |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=38 |issue=4 |pages=651–655 | doi=10.1086/204651 |s2cid=144151770 }}</ref> These individuals occupied several tens of square kilometers, a rich resource base of several different ecosystems. On this land they hunted, harvested food and wood, made charcoal, and may have cultivated cereals and grains for food and fuel.<ref name='foodfuel'/>

The first domesticated morphologic cereals came about at the Abu Hureyra site around 10,000 years ago.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Wilcox|first=George|date=February 2009|title=Late Pleistocene and early Holocene climate and the beginnings of cultivation in northern Syria|journal=Archaeology|volume=19|issue=1|pages=156|bibcode=2009Holoc..19..151W|doi=10.1177/0959683608098961|s2cid=129444462|id={{ProQuest|220530920}}}}</ref>