Includes summary in English language (p. 49).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-60).

Archaeobotanical evidence for the emergence and dispersal of the founder crops was re-examined in the light of the recent finds of cereals in Cypro-Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B levels at Kissonerga-Mylouthkia. Metrical analyses of the cereal grains suggested that they represented domestic glume wheat and hulled barley. The significance of these species on Cyprus at such an early date was assessed within the wider geographical context of the Levant, in particular with respect to the areas where, it has been proposed, the founder crop cereal originated. Closer scrutiny of the contextual associations of the samples in which domestic cereals were identified at Jericho (one of the three Pre-Pottery Neolithic A sites with records of domestic species) necessitated a reappraisal of the rates and directions of dispersal of the crops during the Early Pr-Pottery Neolithic B.