Scientists have found in the Jordanian desert crumbs from a 14,400-year-old loaf that hunter-gatherers baked from wild grains.
What was the first chicken or egg? And what did people start to do earlier: bake bread or engage in agriculture? The answer to the last question turned out to be rather unexpected, it turned out that our ancestors managed to invent bread long before they invented agriculture.
Scientists have suggested that in the Middle East, where wild ancestors of barley and wheat are found in abundance in nature, hunter-gatherers could prepare yeast-free cakes. But there was no evidence.
They appeared after a group of archaeologists from the University of Cambridge managed to dig power (in the food waste of the era at the Neolithic site of Shubayk 1. It is located in the Black Desert in Jordan. However, 14 thousand years ago, there was an oasis on this place, trees were blooming and life was in full swing. The findings, published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, excavated a hearth in the center of a large cooking area lined with basalt slabs.
Among the heap of food debris, archaeologists came across 24 "pearls" - burnt lumps, which, when examined by an electron microscope, turned out to be bread crumbs. They were just over 2 millimeters in diameter. In addition, grains of wild cereals were found near the hearth, which bore traces of grinding. Judging by the structure of the crumbs, they were part of fresh flat, yeast-free cakes, which were baked on hot stones.
“Tortillas were unlikely to be the community's staple food, given that the collection and processing of wild cereals was very labor intensive,” says study lead author Amaya Arranz-Otegi. - Most likely, bread was baked for ritual purposes, or used as a product of long-term storage during long journeys. Bones from more than a dozen animals were found at the hearth. Among them were gazelles, hares and water birds. Then the remnants of the meal were thrown into the hearth, and people left the camp.
Radiocarbon analysis determined the age of the crumbs at 14,400 years. And bread will become a traditional dish on the table only 4 thousand years later, when the first Neolithic communities will switch from collecting to agriculture.
YAROSLAV KOROBATOV
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