Wild cereal grains naturally shatter upon ripening, a trait that makes them exceptionally difficult to harvest efficiently. Because of this, early human foragers instinctively concentrated their gathering efforts on the rare mutant plants that retained their seeds on the stalk. The prevailing theory that the initial domestication of these cereal crops was a deliberate agricultural innovation is fundamentally flawed; it was actually a purely accidental byproduct of basic foraging practices. After all, the successfully gathered seeds were the ones inadvertently scattered around settlements, meaning this selective harvesting inevitably increased the proportion of non-shattering mutants in the local populations over successive generations.
Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main conclusion of the argument?
- The early domestication of cereal crops occurred unintentionally through standard gathering behaviors, rather than through intentional agricultural planning.Cevap
- BEarly foragers preferentially gathered from rare mutant plants that held onto their seeds because normal wild grains were too difficult to harvest.
- CThe practice of selectively harvesting non-shattering mutants caused an unintentional but inevitable increase in their prevalence over time.
- DWild cereal grains possess a natural shattering trait that significantly hinders the efficiency of traditional harvesting methods.
- EThe deliberate cultivation of agricultural crops would not have been possible without the pre-existing presence of non-shattering mutant seeds.