The wild progenitors of crops including wheat, barley, and peas are traced to the Near East region. Cereals were grown in Syria as long as 9 000 years ago, while figs were cultivated even earlier; prehistoric seedless fruits discovered in the Jordan Valley suggest fig trees were being planted some 11 300 years ago. Though the transition from wild harvesting was gradual, the switch from a nomadic to a settled way of life is marked by the appearance of early Neolithic villages with homes equipped with grinding stones for processing grain.

Below is a photo of an ancient grinding stone and bowl from Mexico. Similar devices are still used today to grind corn into corn flour for tortillas. 

Photo from S. L. Robertson Photography

The origins of rice and millet farming date to the same Neolithic period in China. The world’s oldest known rice paddy fields, discovered in eastern China in 2007, reveal evidence of ancient cultivation techniques such as flood and fire control.

In Mexico, squash cultivation began around 10 000 years ago, but corn (maize) had to wait for natural genetic mutations to be selected for in its wild ancestor, teosinte. While maize-like plants derived from teosinte appear to have been cultivated at least 9 000 years ago, the first directly dated corn cob dates only to around 5 500 years ago.

Corn later reached North America, where cultivated sunflowers also started to bloom some 5 000 years ago. This is also when potato growing in the Andes region of South America began.

Below you can see the transition from the wild grain of teosinte to a modern ear of corn. 

Photo by John Doebley - https://teosinte.wisc.edu/images.html