Archaeobotanical evidence reveals the origins of bread 14,400 years ago in northeastern Jordan

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Volumn 115, Issue 31, 2018, Pages 7925-7930

  Arranz Otaegui, Amaia ^a   Carretero, Lara Gonzalez ^b   Ramsey, Monica N ^c   Fuller, Dorian Q ^b   Richter, Tobias ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN   (Denmark)

^b UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

^c UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Archaeobotany; Epipaleolithic; Food; Hunter gatherer; Southwest Asia

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; BOLBOSCHOENUS; BREAD; CROP; JORDAN; MESOLITHIC; NONHUMAN; SURGICAL STAPLE; TRITICUM MONOCOCCUM; CYPERACEAE; HISTORY; PLANT TUBER; WHEAT;

BREAD; CROPS, AGRICULTURAL; CYPERACEAE; HISTORY, ANCIENT; JORDAN; PLANT TUBERS; TRITICUM;

EID: 85051751124     PISSN: 00278424     EISSN: 10916490     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1801071115     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. Popova T (2016) Bread remains in archaeological contexts. Southeast Europe and Anatolia in Prehistory Essays in Honor of Vassil Nikolov on His 65th Anniversary, eds Bacvarov K, Gleser R (Habelt, Bonn), pp 519–526.
2. González Carretero L, Wollstonecroft M, Fuller DQ (2017) A methodological approach to the study of archaeological cereal meals: A case study at Çatalhöyük East (Turkey). Veg Hist Archaeobot 26:415–432.
3. Piperno DR, Weiss E, Holst I, Nadel D (2004) Processing of wild cereal grains in the Upper Palaeolithic revealed by starch grain analysis. Nature 430:670–673.
4. Balossi Restelli F, Mori L (2014) Bread, baking moulds and related cooking techniques in the Ancient Near East. Food Hist 12:39–55.
5. Hayden B, Nixon-Darcus L, Ansell L (2017) Our ‘daily bread’? The origins of grinding grains and breadmaking. Materiality of Food ‘Stuffs’, Transformations, Symbolic Consumption and Embodiments, eds Steel L, Zinn K (Rutledge, New York), pp 57–78.
6. Eitam D, Kislev M, Karty A, Bar-Yosef O (2015) Experimental barley flour production in 12,500-year-old rock-cut mortars in southwestern Asia. PLoS One 10:e0133306.
7. Richter T, Arranz-Otaegui A, Yeomans L, Boaretto E (2017) High resolution AMS dates from Shubayqa 1, northeast Jordan reveal complex origins of Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian in the Levant. Sci Rep 7:17025.
8. Pedersen P, Richter T, Arranz-Otaegui A (2016) Preliminary analysis of the ground stone from Shubayqa 1, Jordan. J Lithic Stud 3:1–24.
9. Yeomans L, Martin L, Richter T (2017) Environment, seasonality and hunting strategies as influences on Natufian food procurement: The faunal remains from Shubayqa 1 Levant. Levant 49:85–104.
10. Arranz-Otaegui A, González-Carretero L, Roe J, Richter T (2018) “Founder crops” v. wild plants: Assessing the plant-based diet of the last hunter-gatherers in southwest Asia. Quat Sci Rev 186:263–283.
11. Heiss AG, et al. (2017) State of the (t)art. Analytical approaches in the investigation of components and production traits of archaeological bread-like objects, applied to two finds from the Neolithic lakeshore settlement Parkhaus Opéra (Zürich, Switzerland). PLoS One 12:e0182401.
12. Heiss AG, Pouget N, Wiethold J, Delor-Ahué A, Le Goff I (2015) Tissue-based analysis of a charred flat bread (galette) from a Roman cemetery at Saint-Memmie (DeÂp. Marne, Champagne-Ardenne, north-eastern France). J Archaeol Sci 55:71–82.
13. Lannoy S, et al. (2002) Etude de “pains/galettes” archéologiques français. Civilisations 49:119–160.
14. Datta AK, Sahin S, Sumnu G, Ozge S, Keskin S (2007) Porous media characterization of breads baked using novel heating modes. J Food Eng 79:106–116.
15. Autio K, Laurikainen T (1997) Relationships between flour/dough microstructure and dough handling and baking properties. Trends Food Sci Technol 8:181–185.
16. Knörzer KH (1981) Auswertung von Großrestuntersuchungen für Aufklärung von Siedlungszusammenhängen. Z Archäol 15:73–76.
17. Valamoti SM (2002) Food remains from Bronze Age-Archondiko and Mesimeriani Toumba in northern Greece? Veg Hist Archaeobot 11:17–22.
18. Wollstonecroft M (2007) Post-harvest intensification in Late Pleistocene Southwest Asia: Plant food processing as a critical variable in Epipalaeolithic subsistence and subsistence change. PhD thesis (University College London, London).
19. Wollstonecroft M, Ellis PR, Hillman GC, Fuller DQ (2008) Advances in plant food processing in the Near Eastern Epipalaeolithic and implications for improved edibility and nutrient bioaccessibility: An experimental assessment of Bolboschoenus mar-itimus (L.) Palla (sea club-rush). Veg Hist Archaeobot 17:19–27.
20. Kubiak-Martens L, Brinkkemper O, Oudemans TFM (2015) What’s for dinner? Processed food in the coastal area of the northern Netherlands in the Late Neolithic. Veg Hist Archaeobot 24:47–62.
21. Dickson CA (1990) Experimental processing and cooking of emmer and spelt wheats and the Roman army diet. Experimentation and Reconstruction in Environmental Archaeology, ed Robinson DE (Oxbow, Oxford), pp 33–39.
22. Samuel D (1994) An archaeological study of baking and bread in New Kingdom Egypt. PhD thesis (University of Cambridge, Cambridge).
23. Wright K (1991) The origins and development of ground stone assemblages in Late Pleistocene Southwest Asia. Paéorient 17:19–45.
24. Valamoti SM, et al. (2008) Prehistoric cereal foods from Greece and Bulgaria: Investigation of starch microstructure in experimental and archaeological charred remains. Veg Hist Archaeobot 17:265–276.
25. Henry AG, et al. (2009) Changes in starch grain morphologies from cooking. J Archaeol Sci 36:915–922.
26. Messner TC (2011) Acorns and Bitter Roots: Starch Grain Research in the Prehistoric Eastern Woodlands (Univ Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, AL).
27. Samuel D (2006) Modified starch. Ancient Starch Research, eds Torrence R, Barton H (Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA), pp 205–216.
28. Fujiwara H (1982) Study of plant opal analysis: 4. Detection of plant opals in Jomon vessels in Kumamoto region. Jpn Cult Sci Inst 14:55–56.
29. Tyree EL (1994) Phytolith analysis of olive oil and wine sediments for possible identification in archaeology. Can J Bot 72:499–504.
30. Staller JE, Thompson RG (2002) Multidisciplinary approach to understanding the initial introduction of maize into coastal Ecuador. J Archaeol Sci 29:33–50.
31. Piperno DR (2006) Phytoliths. A Comprehensive Guide for Archaeologist and Paleoecologist (Altamira Press, Lanham, MD).
32. Craig OE, et al. (2007) Molecular and isotopic demonstration of the processing of aquatic products in northern European prehistoric pottery. Archaeometry 49: 135–152.
33. Zarrillo S, Pearsall DM, Raymond JS, Tisdale MA, Quon DJ (2008) Directly dated starch residues document early formative maize (Zea mays L.) in tropical Ecuador. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105:5006–5011.
34. Boudin M, et al. (2010) Fish reservoir effect on charred food residue 14C dates: Are stable isotope analyses the solution? Radiocarbon 52:697–705.
35. Raviele ME (2011) Experimental assessment of maize phytolith and starch taphonomy in carbonized cooking residues. J Archaeol Sci 38:2708–2713.
36. Petö Á, Gyulai F, Pópity D, Kenéz Á (2013) Macro- and microarchaeobotanical study of a vessel content from a Late Neolithic structured deposition from southeastern Hungary. J Archaeol Sci 40:58–71.
37. Musaubach MG, Berón MA (2017) Food residues as indicators of processed plants in hunter-gatherers’ pottery from La Pampa (Argentina). Veg Hist Archaeobot 26:111–123.
38. Fuller DQ, Gonzalez Carretero L, The early oven cultures: A particular Neolithic in the macro-archaeology of food. J World Prehist in press.
39. Arranz-Otaegui A, Ibañez JJ, Zapata L (2016) Hunter-gatherer plant use in southwest Asia: The path to agriculture. Wild Harvest: Plants in the Hominin and Pre-Agrarian Human Worlds, eds Hardy K, Kubiak-Martens L (Oxbow Books, Oxford), pp 91–110.
40. Maeda O, Lucas L, Silva F, Tanno KI, Fuller DQ (2016) Narrowing the harvest: Increasing sickle investment and the rise of domesticated cereal agriculture in the Fertile Crescent. Quat Sci Rev 145:226–237.
41. Rosen A (2010) Natufian plant exploitation: Managing risk and stability in an environment of change. Eurasian Prehist 7:113–127.
42. Power RC, Rosen AM, Nadel D (2016) Phytolith evidence of the use of plants as food by Late Natufians at Raqefet Cave. Wild Harvest: Plants in the Hominin and Pre-Agrarian Human Worlds, eds Hardy K, Kubiak-Martens L (Oxbow Books, Oxford), pp 191–2013.
43. Dickson C (1987) The identification of cereals from ancient bran fragments. Circaea 4: 95–102.
44. Colledge S (1988) Scanning electron studies of the cell patterns of the pericarp layers of some wild wheats and ryes. Methods and problems. Scanning Electron Microscopy in Archaeology, BAR International Series 452, ed Olsen SL (BAR, Oxford), pp 225–236.
45. Holden T (1990) Transverse cell patterns of wheat and rye brand and their variation over the surface of a single grain. Circaea 60:97–104.
46. Hather JG (1993) An Archaeobotanical Guide to Root and Tuber Identification: Europe and South West Asia, Oxbow Monograph 28 (Oxbow Books, Oxford), Vol 1.