Men and plants: a history inscribed in words, drawings and DNA

At the end of the last glacial period, some 13,000 years before present, man made a discovery that radically changed the world: agriculture. This innovation led many things that we now take for granted: writing, culture, nations, technology and science. At the same time agriculture was the starting point of a new evolutionary force that through co-evolution of man and plants produced the many crops we know and use today. This epic history, made of trials and errors, of discoveries and disregards, is written not only in the DNA of these crops but also in books or paintings, and, in the oral tradition of many different populations or local communities. Until today, in isolated communities, it is often possible to find the tradition of cultivating a species unknown to the rest of the territory, or at least the remembrance of such activity. The aim of this contribution is to demonstrate that an integrated approach to the study of genetic resources may disclose knowledge otherwise hidden, and that the attitude to produce new crops or varieties is not a prerogative of scientists alone, and even in present days, man holds the instinct to put new plants into cultivation.