Localised climate change is the favoured explanation for the origins of agriculture in the Levant.[11] When major climate change took place after the last ice age (c. 11,000 BC), much of the earth became subject to long dry seasons.[12] These conditions favoured annual plants which die off in the long dry season, leaving a dormant seed or tuber. An abundance of readily storable wild grains and pulses enabled hunter-gatherers in some areas to form the first settled villages at this time.[13]