An international team of researchers has succeeded for the first time in sequencing the genome of Chalcolithic barley grains. This is the oldest plant genome to be reconstructed to date. The 6000-year-venerable (respected because of age, distinguished) seeds were retrieved from Yoram Cave in the southern cliff of Masada fortress in the Judean Desert in Israel,close to the Dead Sea. Genetically, the prehistoric barley is very similar to present-day barley grown in the Southern Levant, and supporting the existing hypothesis of barley domestication having occurred in the Upper Jordan Valley.
Source: phys.org