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4000 BCE
Vines and olives
Grapes are probably first cultivated in the region of the Caspian sea, where it is indigenous. The Phoenicians take the vine to southern France and Spain in about the 8th century BC, and in the early centuries AD the Romans plant grapes in the Rhine valley. -
2500 BCE
Cotton, rice
Yarns of spun cotton and rice have been grown first in the Indus Valley. -
8 BCE
Acient cereals
Wheat is the first cereal to be cultivated by man. In several places in the Middle East it is being sowed, tended and reaped soon after 8000 BC. Barley is grown within the following millennium.
Rice is thought to have been cultivated considerably later, perhaps not until about 2500 BC. It is uncertain whether it is first grown as a crop in India or China. -
200
Potatoes
The potato, a plant native to high terrain in the Peruvian Andes, is believed to have been cultivated there at least 1800 years ago. -
400
Sugar
The cultivation of sugar cane, a plant probably indigenous in New Guinea, spreads through southeast Asia in prehistoric times. The first mention of its use, crushed for its sweet juice, is in northern India in the 4th century BC. Both sugar and candy derive from Sanskrit words (sarkara, khanda). Sugar processed for use in solid form must wait for almost a millennium. The first certain reference to it is in Persia in the 6th century AD. -
450
Tea
Tea, the leaf of a shrub of the camellia family indigenous to China, is probably the first plant to have been cultivated specifically as the basis for a non-alcoholic drink.
