Wild wheats still flourish over a small corner of southeastern Europe and much of the Mideast. They are found from the Balkan Peninsula to Transcaucasia and southward in both arcs of the Fertile Crescent, to the Persian Gulf on the east and the Dead Sea on the west. From these wheats Stone Age man domesticated the types that fed emerging Near Eastern civilizations and, in time, gave rise to our durum and bread wheats.