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"All civilizations depend on available water, but not all depend on rivers. Rivers also provided ancient societies with access to trade -- not only of products, but ideas, including language, writing, and technology. River-based irrigation permitted communities to specialize and develop, even in areas lacking adequate rainfall. For those cultures that depended on them, rivers were the life blood."

"All civilizations depend on available water, but not all depend on rivers. Rivers also provided ancient societies with access to trade -- not only of products, but ideas, including language, writing, and technology. River-based irrigation permitted communities to specialize and develop, even in areas lacking adequate rainfall. For those cultures that depended on them, rivers were the life blood."

"Civilisation is based on the cultivation of plants, but humans rely on plants for far more than simple foodstuffs. This virtual book, written by Henry Hobhouse, the author of Seeds of Change, and Museum botanist Sandra Knapp, is an introduction to the fascinating history of cultivation and some of its impacts on today's society."

"Oats appear to have been crop weeds for a long time before being truly cultivated. There is evidence of wild Avena species contaminating barley and wheat crops in archaeological remains in the Fertile Crescent. When the established crops such as wheat and barley were disseminated into Europe and Asia from the Fertile Crescent, the weedy oats travelled with them. Oat was developed into a crop when it out-competed wheat and barley in the cloudy and wet environment of northern Europe. Domestication of the common oat was first confirmed in archaeological remains found in Central Europe dated 1000 BC."