The earliest evidence of growing crops like wheat and barley are located in…

Concept: The transition from foraging to farming during the Neolithic period is traced through archaeological excavation: the earliest evidence of a cultivated crop is established by the oldest site where charred grain remains, storage pits, or farming tools of that crop have been unearthed.

Application: Mehrgarh, a Neolithic settlement situated in the northwestern hills of the Indian subcontinent — in the region between the Sulaiman and Kirthar ranges, near the Bolan Pass in present-day Balochistan — has yielded charred grains of wheat and barley dated to roughly the 7th millennium BCE, making it the site with the earliest known evidence of these two crops being grown in the subcontinent.

Cross-check: The remaining hill ranges do not match this evidence when checked against their own history:

• The Garo Hills (northeastern India) are linked to later shifting (jhum) cultivation, not the earliest Neolithic wheat-and-barley farming.

• The Malabar Hills (southwestern coast) are historically tied to the spice trade, not to early cereal cultivation.

• The Nilgiri Hills (southern India) became prominent for plantation agriculture only in the colonial era, well after the Neolithic period.

Result: Since Mehrgarh sits in the Sulaiman-Kirthar hill region and provides the earliest evidence of wheat and barley cultivation in the subcontinent, the correct option is "Sulaiman and Kirthar hills".