According to a recent study, archaeologists found some charred detritus in two ancient earth furnaces and identified them as bread from ancient times. In other words: bread was born before the dawn of agrarian civilization.
The residues, in millimeters in size, were found at an archaeological site in the "black desert" of northeastern Jordan.
Archaeologists are grinding the mushroom tubers and trying to make flour.
Using radiocarbon dating, the archaeological team identified the burnt plant material in the furnace and found that the furnace was used about 14,000 years ago.
"Bread has long been seen as a product of an agrarian settled society, but this evidence in Jordan existed before crop cultivation began, and it was at least 3,000 years old," said Dr. Tobias Richter of the University of Copenhagen, co-author of the study. He pointed out that it is generally believed that in the Levantine region, mature agriculture emerged in 8000 BC.
"That is to say, before the beginning of crop cultivation, hunter-gatherers began to make bread," he said.
An underground furnace at the shubayqa site in northeastern Jordan. Bread scraps are found in it.
In a paper published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences, Richter and colleagues from Denmark and the United Kingdom describe how they found the two earth furnaces at a site in the Natufian between 2012 and 2015 and found crumbs from them. Mrs. Nathu is hunter-gatherer and forages for wild grains.
In the rubble of the furnace, the team unearthed small round roots of the wetland plant grass, legume residues, residues of cabbage vegetables, some wild grains, including ground wheat and barley — and 642 charred particles.
The team analyzed 24 of these particles and found that they resembled bread, and the rest should be similar.
"It's some charred crumbs, and there's probably something like this at the bottom of your toaster at home — when you set the gears very high, they go down," Richter said.
Further analysis revealed that 15 of the 24 pieces of detritus contained grain tissue, possibly barley, "one grain of wheat" (the species name; the most primitive diploid cultivar in the wheat genus) or oats, Richter said.
Other detritus contain ingredients from other plants, and the team says the root of the grass-containing root is most likely.
The analysis also revealed that the flour used to make bread may have been sieved and, because there was no stove, the bread may have been baked in charcoal ash or on a hot stone.
The team said that based on observations, the most likely scenario is that the detritus came from an unleavened pasta.
Prior to this, the oldest known bread residue was found in Catalan mounds in Turkey (the site of Neolithic and Copper Age human settlements) dating back 9100 years. This discovery refreshes the above records. But the team says the food may have appeared earlier.
"In archaeology, food scraps have always been overlooked and therefore have not been fully studied," said amaia arranz-otaegui of the University of Copenhagen, the study's lead author. "I'm sure if we look to more ancient sites, we can still hope to find bread-like cereal products from the Paleolithic Age, say 25,000 years ago."
Richter said the breads were unlikely to serve as a staple for Mrs. Nathu because the collection and handling of the grain required a lot of labor. The team suggested that the bread might have been prepared in advance by hunter-gatherers for later trips. But some evidence lends credibility to another line of thinking: The bread may have been used at banquets or ceremonial events.
Ruins of Lady Nathu from 1.46 to 11,600 years ago. Archaeologists found charred bread crumbs in it.
"There were a lot of antelope bones in that older furnace, and at least a dozen other animal bones, like waterfowl and hares," Richter said, "it's a bit like a whole bunch of people sharing a meal, like a little feast, and then the residue is thrown into the stove." ”
Amy Bogaard, professor of Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeology at Oxford University, was not involved in the study. She called the study fascinating. "We knew before that these groups grind and treat plants in a variety of ways, but this study is the first to identify early bread residues," she says, "from the perspective of dietary history, this means that the emergence of pasta foods predates the establishment of agricultural civilization; and in the region, when agricultural civilization was on the rise, the culture of grinding and baking was already established." ”
Although the recipe for this bread is still to be cracked, Richter says they tried making bread from the roots of grass to explore what ancient bread might have tasted like.
"It tastes a bit salty and may not be to the taste of modern people," he said.
Translation: Goose Row
Proofreader: Li Li
Edit: Man Qian
Source: the guardian
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