"Grain" refers to small, hard, edible seeds. They include not only cereals, but also peas, beans, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, mustard seeds, buckwheat seeds, c

"Grain" refers to small, hard, edible seeds. They include not only cereals, but also peas, beans, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, mustard seeds, buckwheat seeds, chia seeds, etc., etc. Grains can come from a huge variety of both wild and domesticated plants. While grains are less important to hunter-gatherering societies than they are to farming societies, grains nevertheless have been a part of the human diet since long before agriculture. The big difference here is that most hunter-gatherers ate extremely diverse diets. Their diets were not dominated by a couple species of cereal grains, like later diets were. Instead, they were eating a huge array of different grains, nuts, fruit, tubers, mushrooms, fish, insects, etc., on a seasonal and regional basis.