Abstract
Man has been using some legumes as important sources of food ever since the invention of agriculture, probably about 8000 to 10,000 years ago. For example, remains of peas, Fisum sativum, have been found in the Swiss lake dwellings of the Bronze Age (1), and the plant was cultivated by the Greeks and Romans. The broad bean, Vicia faba, probably native to northern Africa and the Near East, has been under domestication for at least 4000 years and probably longer. It was well known to the ancient Egyptians and to the Greeks. Records 5000 years old mention cultivation of the soybean, Glycine max, in eastern Asia, possibly its native habitat, but there is no record of its first domestication, which must have occurred long before.
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© 1976 Plenum Press, New York
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Roberts, L.M., Vieira, C. (1976). Improving the Production and Nutritional Quality of Food Legumes. In: Scrimshaw, N.S., Béhar, M. (eds) Nutrition and Agricultural Development. Basic Life Sciences, vol 7. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2883-4_27
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2883-4_27
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