Exactly when, where, how, why our ancient ancestors ‘invented’ farming is one of the great questions of archaeology.

Surely if we can answer it we will understand something profound about humanity and the journey we are on.

But like all good invention stories, this one isn’t straightforward.

Dallas’s guest today is Robert Spengler, director of the Paleoethnobotany Laboratories at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, author of Fruit from the Sands, with an upcoming book about domestication.

Edited by Thomas Ntinas, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long