How does comparing mutations help one to trace the spread of agriculture?

Question

This is for my Ap world history class and its due tomorrow. If anybody could help me out I would greatly appreciate it.

Answer 1

At the start of agriculture, wild wheat seed was able to plant itself by virtue of its shape...but it didn't have the yield nor nutrition of what the mutated seeds had, the farmed seeds. And the mutated seeds didn't have the ability to fall to the earth and plant themselves like their wild cousin...it required manual labor to plant the farm seed.

Answer 2

Pioneers tend to bring seeds with them to plant crops they know now to grow and harvest. If two different areas have the same crop with the same mutation, then the crop was probably brought to one location from the other by someone who brought the seed with them. But if the crops don't have the same mutation, then either there was no trade or migrations between the 2 areas, or the mutation occurred after people migrated between one and another, or the people without the mutation migrated to the area where the mutation was already established.