ORIGIN, HISTORY AND TAXONOMY OF CHICIPEA ORIGIN, HISTORY AND TAXONOMY OF CHICKPEA L.J.G. VAN DER MAESEN Professor, Department of Taxonomy, Agricultural University, Wageningen, The Netherlands The cultivated chickpea, Cicer arietinumL. , was one of thefirst grai n legumes to bedomesticate d in theOl d World. Archaeological and linguisticevidenc e for theus eo fchickpe a byearl y man islimited ,bu ta reasonable picture can bedraw n of its history. Of course,mor edocumentatio n iscertainl y required. This chapter isa nupdat eo fearlie r publicationso nth esam esubjec t byva nde r Maesen (1972)an d Ramanujam (1976). I. ORIGIN Thechickpe a mostprobabl y originated ina n area of present-day south-eastern Turkey andadjoinin g Syria. Threewil dannua lspecie so f Cicer,closel yrelate d toth echickpea ,ar e found there:C. bijugumK.H .Rech. , C.echinospermum P.H. Davis and C.reticulatum Lad. The latter,first describe d by Ladizinsky (1975), could also be classified as a wild variety or subspecies of C. arietinum. The former two were described recently (Rechinger 1952, Davis 1970). Cicer reticulatum can be considered as a progenitor, or perhaps had a common ancestor with chickpea. Since early botanists did not recognize these (relatively rare) close relatives, various diffuse origins have been postulated for chickpea. DeCandoll e(1883 )trace d theorigi no fchickpe a toa n areasout ho fth eCaucasu s andnorther n Persia. Vavilov (1926, 1949-50) designated two primary centres of origin (now centres of diversity), south-west Asia and the Mediterranean, and a secondary one, Ethiopia. He noticed that, like other grain legumes, large-seeded cultivars abounded around the Mediterranean basin, whereas small-seeded cultivars predominated eastwards. There are linguistic indications that the large-seeded, cream-coloured chickpea 12 L. J. G. VAN DER MAESEN reached India only twocenturie s ago,apparentl y through Afghanistan, as its Hindi name isKabuli chana (chana = chickpea), an allusion to the Afghanistan capital Kabul. The small-seeded, dark-coloured chickpea iscalle d Desi(local) , and these denominations are now quite widely used to distinguish the two main groups of cultivars. The most closely related wild species,C. bijugum, C.echinospermum and C.reticulatum would have attracted early food gatherers;th e seed sizeo fC. bijugum and C. reticulatum isquit e reasonable (ca 9an d 10g per 100 seeds), and unlike other species,the y do not shatter their seeds immediately upon ripening. Domestication and crop evolution followed the usual process (Schwanitz 1966). Artificial selection favoured largepalatabl eseeds ,reduce d poddehiscence ,non-dormancy ,synchronou s ripening,earlines san d diversity of forms. If perennial species have played a role, their perennial nature and spiny or tendrillous leavesar eabsen t inth ecultivar . Mutation andselectio n wouldhav ebee n themajo r processesleadin gt oth e vastdiversit yo fpresent-da y cultivars.Recombinatio n would havebee n lessimportant ,a t least now,becaus e asfa r as isknow n all Cicerspecie sar e almost exclusively self-pollinating. Even where twoo r morespecie s occurtogether ,introgressio n isunlikely ,bu tcanno tb eentirel y ruled out. Proofo fnatura l hybridization has not been reported. Apart from occasional escapes and volunteers from previouscrops ,C. arietinumdoe s not occur in the wild state. Mention of chickpea in the wild state has been made by Pliny (cf. Murr 1890) for Greece,b y Jaubert and Spach (1842) for Iran and India, by Lenz (1859) for Crete, and by Duschak (1871) for Palestine, but these could easily have been escapes. II. ARCHAEOLOGICAL REMAINS Chickpea seedssuffe r in thecarbonize d stage rather moretha n pea and lentil seeds;th echaracteristi c beak of the seed isofte n damaged, making the seed difficult todistinguis h from pea seed, a grain legume rather more abundant in archaeological deposits (Helbaek 1959). Helbaek (1970) reported thepresentl y oldest known certain occurrence ofchickpe a from Hacilar near Burdur inTurkey ,date d toabou t 5450 BC. Ancient Egypt left abow lo fchickpe a seed dated to 1400B C as a grave gift in Deir-el-Medineh (Darby et al. 1977). The scanty presence of grain legumes in general as grave gifts in Egyptian tombs is explained by the fact that they were considered unclean (Murr 1890). Chickpea seeds were not depicted on frescoes (Woenig 1897), but small faenza models were found in a Middle Kingdom tomb at Matarya (Darby et al. 1977). Hopf (1969 )liste d proofso fcultivatio n from the Middle East:a t Jerichogrea t quantitieswer efoun di n layers dating back to the Early Bronze Age (3200 BC), and perhaps from the Pre-Pottery Blevel s (6250 BC). Akin do f Cicerwa sperhap srepresente d inGermany ,nea r Frankfurt am Main,i nth eUppe r Pliocene (Kinkelin, cf. Gams 1924). Mud impressionso fchickpe a seeds insidea silver water pot from a tombi nth e Royal Cemetery at Ur (ca 2500 BC) excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley were not made public until 1978 (Ellison et al. 1978). Other Iraqifinds wer efro m Tell Bazmosian and Nimrud (Helbaek, see Ellison et al. 1978). Chickpea occurred during the Bronze and Iron Ages in Palestine at Lachish (Helbaek, ibid.). A cigarette tin (A 13677)a t the University of Chicagocontain sa mixtureo fcarbonize d seedsfro m Megiddo, Palestine,obtaine d duringth e 1926 excavations. Found ina roo mo nth esummit ,som eo fth eseed scoul db e chickpea; others are Vicia erviliaan d small Viciaf aba, datin g back to ca 1000 BC. Ramanujam (1976) summarized the early history of chickpea. The earliest occurrence of chickpea in India dates from 2000 BC,a t Atranjikhera in Uttar Pradesh (Chowdury et al. 1971;Vishnu-Mittr e 1974), and may represent an overland introduction. Savithri (1976) cited fossil grains from ca 1000 BCi n India, and itseem slogica l that thepopulatio n of Mohenjo-daro would haveknow nchickpea ,althoug h Theophras- tus mentioned that the crop was not known in India during his time (Moreno 1985). At Nevasa (near Aurangabad) chickpea first appeared infinds date d to 300-100 BC. ORIGIN, HISTORY AND TAXONOMY OF CHICKPEA 13 III. WRITTEN HISTORY AND THE CHICKPEA'S VERNACULARS Thechickpe a isknow n from ancient manuscripts. Thewor d hallurudenote sth echickpe a from theearlies t time (before 3000BC )a sa stabl efoo d oflittl eimportanc e in Mesopotamia. Itspopularit y diminished from theOl dAkkadia n toth e Middle-Babylonian period;th eNeo-Babylonia n period texts from Nippur attest to itsagricultura l importance. The identification of halluru isbase d onetymologica l similarities to Hebrew, Aramaeic and Arabic (hullar) (Gelb et al. 1956). A papyrus school text in Egypt from the twentieth dynastyo f the New Kingdom (1580-1100 BC) liststh epuls e (very aptly) asHrw-b'k, falcon-faces', amon g anumbe ro fplan t names(Dixo n 1969). Amor epositiv ereferenc e tochickpe a from Egypt israthe r late: ca 255 BC, referring to chickpea seeds bought at 5 drachmae per artaba from Sosus. The Iliad by Homer (ca 1000-800 BC) compared the arrows of Helenus,so n of Priam, King of Troy, bouncing away from the breastplate of Menelaos,hi sGree k opponent, with bean and erebinthos (chickpea seeds) bouncing on the winnower's basket. Erebinthosmigh t have meant any pea here, but Theophrastus (370-285 BC) certainly meant chickpea when he wrote erebinthos, since he described the pod as round (Hehn 1874). Thenam eCicer i so fLati n origin (Horace) and isprobabl yderive d from thepre-indogerma n kickerei n the Pelasgian language of the tribes populating north Greece before Greek-speaking tribes took over. Don (1882) suggested that Cicerwa sderive d from the Greek Kikus, force orstrength . Duschak (1871)derive d Cicerfro m the Hebrew Kirkes, where kikar means round; Gams (1924) compared it with the Hebrew ketsech. The oldest reference to the Latin epithet arietinum was found in Columella's work, probably as a translation ofth eGree k Krios, another name for both ram and chickpea,alludin g toth esee dshape ,simila r to a ram's (Aries) head. The Spanish vernaculars garbanzo and garabanzo, and the related French garvanche, garvance, garavane (and the derived German Garabanze) are unrelated to other names. De Candolle (1883) presumed aver yancien t cultivation inIberia . Gams(1924) ,however ,sa wa relationshi pbetwee n theGree k orobos and erebinthos, and the old German arawiz (in modern German Erbse). Many of the vernacular names for chickpea are derived from Cicer. In France these arepois chiche (the commonest vernacular), pois eiche,eiche, césé, céséron, cicérole, ciserolle,seses; i n Germany the common Kichererbseo rKicher ha sman y pendantssuc h as Chicher, Chichina, Chichuria, Cicererbis, Cisa, Cyfer,Czycke an d Reicheren, Kekeren, Keyker,Kicher(n)kraut, Kicherling, Sisern,Sekern, Venuskicher, Ziesererbsen, Zisererwedsen, Ziser and Ziserbohne. In Great Britain and Anglophone countries chickpea is a corruption for chich-pea,th e same root. The Dutch names are also derived from Cicer: Keker, kekerenvt, kicher, kikkererwt and cicererwt, citsers, sisseran dsissererwt. Eventh e Berber language from Northern Africa knows the chickpea as ikiker and kiker. Somevernacular s of chickpea refer to a kind of pea: the French pois bécu, pois blanc, poisde brebis (sheep),poisbreton, pois chabot, pois citron, poiscornu, poisgris, poispointu (because of the beak),pois tête de bélier (ramshead); the English Egyptian pea or hamoos pea (from the Arabic); the German Fontanellerbse, graue Erbsen (usually ordinary peas), Malagaerbsen, and the Russian ovetcheharokh (sheep's pea) orpuzirnyi gorokh (glandular pea). Popular usage even confounded chickpeas with beans: the American garbanzobean, th e German Ziserbohne,an d the Ethiopian Galla vernacular adungare, a general term for bean. Sincechickpea , inparticula r theblack-seede d type,wa suse da sa coffee-surrogate , several vernaculars exist such as Kaffeeerbse deutscheo rfranzosische Kaffeebohne, deutscherKaffee, pois cafe,th e Finnish kahviherne,an d the Swedish Kaffeart.