The NICHE project contributes to a general paradigm shift in reconstructing the origins of agriculture in that it questions the traditional dichotomy between gathering and cultivation and develops a method to reconstruct practices associated with the management of food resources and not just a 'step-change' from gathering to cultivation. Since ca. 15 to 20 years, archaeobotanical and archaeozoological research demonstrates that the transition to food producing economies was much more gradual and involved millennia of what has been called 'low-level food production'. However, it was unclear which practices these management systems entailed, and in the case of cereals in southwest Asia scholars focused on the identification of regularly tilled plots, which was still oriented on the traditional dichotomy between gathering and cultivating. The NICHE project makes a major contribution to the development of analytical techniques that can identify specific practices such as soil tillage and related ecological effects. The result that early sedentary communities, which depended on the large-scale exploitation of wild cereals for centuries, did not cultivate these in arable plots but presumably practiced landscape-wide grassland management contributes to the recognition that resilient food management and production systems do not require labour-intensive practices such as tillage. 'No-tillage' farming as a sustainable and ecological modern strategy is practiced by an increasing number of organic farmers today, who focus on genetic and taxonomic diversity rather than maximum yields from a few crops. The latter aspect, high genetic and taxonomic diversity, is a further component of prehistoric farming since the Neolithic that contributed to the resilience of this 'new' way of life and has been documented from many prehistoric contexts in southwest Asia, Europe, and other world regions. All in all, these long-term perspectives on arable farming are pivotal to build resilient food production systems in the future. Phenomena like profound climatic changes, population growth, and growing social inequality, have been experienced by prehistoric farming communities since farming first developed between 12,000-8,000 years ago in southwest Asia. Archaeological studies like NICHE, which combine long-term socio-economic and ecological perspectives from the past, can contribute to a better understanding of how human societies can cope with and overcome these challenges today and in the future.
