Wheat was first domesticated in which region?

• A. Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia)
• B. Nile River valley
• C. Indus Valley
• D. Andean highlands

Answer: (A)

This question focuses on where farming first turned wheat from wild grasses into a cultivated crop. The earliest domesticated wheat comes from the Fertile Crescent, the eastern Mediterranean arc that includes parts of modern-day Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and Turkey. About 9,000–10,000 years ago, people there began selecting wheat varieties like einkorn and emmer for traits that made harvesting and storage easier—larger, non-shattering seeds that stay on the stalk. This shift marks a major move from foraging to settled agriculture and is supported by archaeological finds across sites in the Levant and Mesopotamia. The other regions listed are associated with agriculture and crops, but they do not represent where wheat was first domesticated, and wheat is not native to the Andean highlands.