This book is about plant domestication and the origins of agriculture in the Near East (Figure Introduction 1), which were major components of the process known as the Agricultural Revolution or the Neolithic Revolution.1 The expansive discussion we offer in this book is restricted to plant domestication; animal domestication, a broad subject in its own right, is treated in a contribution by Professor Gila Kahila Bar-Gal (see Chapter 14). The term ‘domestication’ (or ‘plant domestication’) in the context of the current work carries both biological and cultural significance. From the biological perspective, it implies the acquisition of new traits that differ from the prevalent wild type plant while the cultural perspective denotes a change in worldviews and life-ways enabling the adoption of plants for food production. Throughout this book we distinguish between the Agricultural Revolution (see Glossary, General Terms, Agricultural Revolution) as a general socio-cultural transformation and the domestication (see Glossary, General Terms, Plant domestication) of plants (and animals) as a single aspect of this multifaceted human development.