Andean natives in what is now Peru and Bolivia created many varieties of potatoes beginning 10,000 years ago. Andean women developed different varieties for different growing conditions and learned to freeze dry potatoes for long-term storage.
Its cool to think that over 10 thousand years ago people were doing things to keep produce longer and we still use those types of preserving tactics.
After thousands of years of hunting and gathering, the ancient people of northern China began cultivating millet and rice at about the same time and in much the same way that people of the Middle East grew wheat and people of the Americas grew maize, potatoes, and cassava.
This is cool to think that different nations thrived by growing different things and if they grew those things and had a good harvest their nations populations would normally grow.
Wheat was discovered in a region we call the fertile crescent, stretching from the Persian Gulf to the eastern Mediterranean. As cultivation spread and surpluses of grain were produced, civilizations like those of Egypt and Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq) rose between 6,000 and 5,000 years ago.
This information is interesting to see that a crop that is rarely planted now because the price of it is useless compared to back then when people grew it and the plant would let them thrive in their cultures.