An interdisciplinary research project on the development of the earliest forms of agriculture shows that early farming societies began to integrate new cereal varieties into their range of crops almost 7,000 years ago. A research team led by Professor Dr. Silviane Scharl, Dr. Astrid Röpke (both from the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Cologne) and Professor Dr. Astrid Stobbe (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main) gained deeper insights into the underlying processes and defined a more precise time frame for these innovations in agriculture.