Wheat and barley are among the most important staple foods, originally exploited, cultivated and domesticated in the Near East, in places between the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Western slopes of the Zagros Mountains, at the beginning of the Holocene epoch. Almost all wild progenitors of the domesticated species of wheat and barley naturally grow in Iran, a Near Eastern Country, and were frequently exploited by the residents of the Iranian plateau throughout history. The cultivation of grains was initiated by hunter-gatherers dwelled in Iran as a supplementary source of food in the 12th millennium BP; however, the domestication of wheat and barley, in the 10th millennium BP, revolutionized life-style of the Iranian people, and led to a gradual but steady increase in the complexity of human societies in Iran. Every aspects of grain cultivation and its technical difficulties pushed forward human societies to develop more and more efficient methods of cultivation, irrigation, transportation, storage and reservation, food preparation, trade and commercialization, governmental taxation and scientific exploration and invention, which were reviewed briefly in the current manuscript on the basis of the available archaeological and archaeobotanical literature, covering a timespan from 12th millennium BP to 1st millennium AD.

小麦和大麦是最重要的主食之一，始于全新世初期，在近东，地中海东海岸和扎格罗斯山脉西坡之间的地区被近距离开发，种植和驯化。驯化的小麦和大麦物种的几乎所有野生祖先自然生长在伊朗（一个近东国家），并且在整个历史上经常被伊朗高原的居民所利用。谷物的种植是由居住在伊朗的狩猎者和采集者开始的，它们是BP十二世纪的补充食物来源。然而，在公元10世纪，小麦和大麦的驯化彻底改变了伊朗人民的生活方式，并导致伊朗人类社会的复杂性逐渐但稳步增加。