It is commonly agreed that cultivation of wild barley preceded the sel
ection of the domesticated, non-brittle spike type. However, how commo
n was wild barley cultivation before domestication and how many domest
icated mutants gave rise to the barley crop could not be inferred from
botanical and archaeological evidence. Some clues, nevertheless, can
be obtained from the pattern of allozyme diversity in wild and cultiva
ted barley obtained by Kahler and Allard (1981). Parallel variation, i
n terms of number of alleles per locus and frequency of the various al
leles, was found in wild and domesticated barley. This similarity has
been taken as an indication of multiple domestications and the frequen
cy of the rarest alleles has been used to estimate that about 100 toug
h-rachis different mutants were necessary for the inclusion of the all
ozyme diversity of the wild barley in the domesticated crop. Assuming
mutation rate of 10(-6) in the locus governing tough rachis, the plant
population required to generate these 100 mutants in one year would e
xtend over about 200 hectares, or 10 hectares if the 100 mutants have
been formed over a period of 20 years. The simplified calculations sug
gest that prior to domestication cultivation of wild barley was not a
common practice.