  The study of the origins of crops is of interest from both a fundamental
evolutionary understanding viewpoint, and from an applied agricultural
technology perspective. The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is the iconic
fruit crop of hot and arid regions of North Africa and the Middle East,
producing sugar-rich fruits, known as dates. There are many different cultivars
each with distinctive fruit traits, and there are many wild Phoenix species
too, which in total form a complex of related species. The understanding of
plant domestication involves multiple disciplines, including phylogeography,
population genetics and archaeology. In the past decade, they have prompted new
discoveries on the evolutionary history of date palm, but a complete
understanding of its origins remains to be elucidated, along with the genetic
architecture of its domestication syndrome. In this chapter, we review the
current state of the art regarding the origins of the domesticated date palm.
We first discuss whether date palms are domesticated, and highlight how they
diverge from their wild Phoenix relatives. We then outline patterns in the
population genetic and archaeobotanical data, and review different models for
the origins of domesticated date palms by highlighting sources of evidence that
are either consistent or inconsistent with each model. We then review the
process of date palm domestication, and emphasize the human activities that
have prompted its domestication. We particularly focus on the evolution of
fruit traits.
