ted eight great hearths of plant domestication. These were places where he believed that agricultural production first began. In order of importance and number of plant species domesticated these are: China with 136 plants domesticated, India with 117, the Near East had 83 plants, the Guatemala highlands with 49, the Andes with 46, the Sudanic-Abyssinian area had 38, the South American tropics had 35 and southeast Asia had domesticated 24 plants. The hypothesis concerning these great hearths states that human populations settled into these areas because of the wide variety of nat
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