DOI: 10.1007/s12210-009-0002-7 Rendiconti Lincei 20, 21 – 37 (2009) Gabriella Sonnante · Karl Hammer · Domenico Pignone From the Cradle of Agriculture a Handful of Lentils: History of Domestication Received: 22 January 2008 / Revised version: 30 May 2008 – © Springer-Verlag 2009 Abstract Literature on lentil domestication is reviewed, particularly consid- ering archeobotanical, phylogenetic, and molecular evidence. Lentils are one of the oldest crops cultivated and domesticated by man. Carbonized small lentil seeds have been found in several archaeological re- mains starting from the Neolithic. It is probable, however, that the most ancient remains refer to wild lentils; this is difficult to ascertain since seed size was probably selected after the establishment of a domesticated lentil. It is general opinion that cultivation occurred before domestication, but for how long is still an open question. It is now well accepted that the domestication of lentils was accomplished in the Near East, in an area called “the cradle of agriculture”. The genus Lens is very small, containing only 6 taxa. A wide range of morpho- logical and molecular evidence supports the idea that the lentil wild progenitor is Lens culinaris ssp. orientalis. On the other hand, the most distantly related species within the genus appears to be L. nigricans, whose domestication was also attempted without success. The first characters involved in lentil domestication were pod dehiscence and seed dormancy. These traits are under a simple genetic control, and there- fore mutants must have been fixed in a relatively short time. These and other morphological traits possibly involved in lentil domestication have been mapped in several linkage maps. However, generally these maps are not eas- ily integrated since they are based on a limited number of markers. Newer G. Sonnante (B ) Istitute of Plant Genetics, CNR, Via Amendola 165/A, 70126 Bari, Italy E-mail: gabriella.sonnante@igv.cnr.it K. Hammer Department of Agricultural Biodiversity, University of Kassel, Witzenhausen, Germany D. Pignone Institute of Plant Genetics, CNR, Via Amendola 165/A, 70126 Bari, Italy