Before there were Newtons.

In the ruins of a prehistoric village in the West Bank, near Jericho, scientists have found the charred remains of figs that appear to be the earliest-known cultivated fruit. Researchers say the figs, which are about 11,400 years old, came from trees that were grown about a thousand years before the development of staple crops like wheat, barley, and chickpeas. Ofer Bar-Yosef, an archaeologist at Harvard's Peabody Museum, contends that the first cultivated grains were introduced in what is now Israel and north into the upper Euphrates River valley, in today's Iraq. (Other researchers think these crops most likely originated in southern Turkey.) When scientists compared the ancient figs with modern ones, they concluded that the ancient fruit was a mutant strain that yielded no fertile seeds. The figs could have been reproduced only by people deliberately planting shoots from the trees. "Eleven thousand years ago," says Bar-Yosef, "there was a critical switch in the human mind.... People decided to intervene in nature and supply their own food rather than relying on what was provided by the gods."