Further evidence supporting Morocco as a centre of origin of barley

Thirty-five populations of H. spontaneum from nine countries, encompassing almost all the known range of distribution of the species, Afghanistan, Cre te (Greece), Cyprus, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Morocco and Turkey, were st udied utilizing RFLP markers (21 probes with three restriction enzymes) dis tributed across all seven barley chromosomes in an attempt to unveil the ge netic dissimilarities existing among them. UPGMA clustering, based on the N ei and Li (1979) similarity coefficient, produced a dendrogram where three clusters could be defined: two with a clear geographical distinction (Moroc co and Cyprus) and another one grouping all the Asian/Middle Eastern popula tions, except for an accession from Iran that clustered separately. These r esults confirm our previous work and suggest that barley domestication coul d also have taken place outside the Fertile Crescent, particularly in Moroc co.