Where bread began: Ancient tools used to reconstruct — and taste — prehistoric cuisine | Ancientfoods

Original article:

Eurkalert.org

PUBLIC RELEASE: 26-AUG-2015

BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY

Team including researchers from Bar-Ilan University and Harvard University unravel the mystery of 12,500-year-old rock-cut mortars found throughout Southwestern Asia.

Using 12,500-year-old conical mortars carved into bedrock, they reconstructed how their ancient ancestors processed wild barley to produce groat meals, as well as a delicacy that might be termed “proto-pita” – small loaves of coal-baked, unleavened bread. In so doing, they re-enacted a critical moment in the rise of civilization: the emergence of wild-grain-based nutrition, some 2,000 to 3,000 years before our hunter-gatherer forebears would establish the sedentary farming communities which were the hallmark of the “Neolithic Revolution”.

The research team, consisting of independent researchers as well as faculty members from Bar-Ilan and Harvard Universities, conducted their study in the Late Natufian site of Huzuq Musa, located in Israel’s…

Source: Where bread began: Ancient tools used to reconstruct — and taste — prehistoric cuisine | Ancientfoods