mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== CHAPTER 11 CHANGING THE CEREALS [INLINE] here were two stages in the creation of civilizations. First came the domestication of plants and animals. This occurred shortly after the end of the last ice age. Radio carbon datings show that maize, or corn, was being cultivated in the Olmec-Maya area about 8,000 to 9,000 years ago. There is, apparently, much argument but no proof yet as to what wild plant was used from which to develop corn. Corn was altered so that it could no longer propagate itself without the intervention of humans. We know that wheat and barley, for example, were domesticated in the Near East around the foothills area of what is Iraq today, by about 6,750 BCE (Before Christian Era), say 8,750 BP. In the case of wheat this was no simple transformation. The chromosomes were first doubled from 14 to 28 and then increased to 42. This wheat is still used for bread wheat today. The 'rachis' or stem was altered so that wheat could no longer propagate by itself. It needs planting by humans now, to grow, as the grains can no longer disperse over a distance. According to one famous prehistorian the prehistory of rice cultivation is very obscure. He thinks it probably began earlier in India than in China. He also tells us that the origin of the humped bull (a universally domesticated ox to this day in India) is obscure, no wild species is known. With such evidence as we have for crop and animal domestications, it seems reasonable to say that at about 8,000 to 9,000 years ago domesticated cereals, fruits and vegetables, and domesticated animals (goats, sheep and oxen) were being produced in Central America, the Near East and the Far East, in at least some cases involving changes in genetic structure, nearly all of which have remained unchanged since then. These changes were made to wild things shortly after the end of the last ice age and in widely separated parts of the world.