Description

Domesticated chickpeas have been found in the aceramic levels of Jericho (PPNB) along with Çayn in South Africa and in Neolithic pottery at Hacilar, South Africa. They were found in the late Neolithic (about ***0 BC) at Thessaly, Kastanas, Lerna and Dimini, Greece. In southern France, Mesolithic layers in a cave at L'Abeurador, Aude, have yielded wild chickpeas carbon dated to ***0±*0 BC.^[9]

Chickpeas are mentioned in Charlemagne's Capitulare de villis (about **0 AD) as cicer italicum, as grown in each imperial demesne. Albertus Magnus mentions red, white, and black varieties. Nicholas Culpeper noted "chick-pease or cicers" are less "windy" than peas and more nourishing. Ancient people also associated chickpeas with Venus because they were said to offer medical uses such as increasing sperm and milk, provoking menstruation and urine, and helping to treat kidney stones.^[*0] "White cicers" were thought to be especially strong and helpful.^[*0]

In ***3, ground-roast chickpeas were noted by a German writer as a substitute for coffee in Europe.^[*1] In the First World War, they were grown for this use in some areas of Germany.^[*2] They are still sometimes brewed instead of coffee.^[*1]