Recent research pushes back human use of grains to pre-agricultural times

[chromedome]

Inventive researchers have found ways to identify grain residues and grain-processing tools at early Neolithic sites, giving us a more balanced picture of the early human diet (they're still working on the whole green-vegetable thing). An excellent read for anyone who's interested in such things.

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01681-w

[liuzhou]

People have known for a very, very long time that grain usage preceded agriculture. Never in the history of human life has anyone woken up and thought,

"I've got a good idea. I'll start planting these seeds no one ever never uses and set up a chain of bakery shops as soon as I invent bread and cakes.  And while I'm at it, I'll use these new things I'll call crops to make a drink that makes people talk garbage and then fall down.

There is nothing new in that article.

[chromedome]

(shrug) There's being pretty sure, and there's having empirical proof.

 

The whole "cavemen lived on meat" thing was always a risible fallacy, but - being so solidly entrenched - difficult to overturn without evidence.

[liuzhou]

16 minutes ago, chromedome said:

(shrug) There's being pretty sure, and there's having empirical proof.

 

The whole "cavemen lived on meat" thing was always a risible fallacy, but - being so solidly entrenched - difficult to overturn without evidence.

 

There is plenty evidence which predates that study. I remember reading it years ago.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

As I recall @nathanm has evidence of bread baking in Africa from 70,000 years ago.  Gluten free.

 

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

Thanks for that interesting link. It points out that our ancestors, due to necessity, developed techniques to use the wild (and then domesticated) plants in their environment. Not just meat, which in most eras of human existence was a "luxury" item--wonderful when you could get it but not an everyday thing--but everything edible. Most folks were vegetarian most of the time. Must have been a lot of experimentation going on, some of which ended badly. Who was the first person to eat an artichoke, which is after all not much more than a jumped-up thistle? Why would you even consider it as edible? I suspect many things become edible if you're hungry.

 

The other reason it's interesting to me is that my husband's name is the same as another ancient wheat, one with more chromosomes than eikorn. We've always wanted to grow it but have never had the time, resources or property to do that.