[Sca-cooks] Early Flatbreads

[Terry Decker]

> <<<
> Article released yesterday in the NYTimes:
> "Paleolithic Humans Had Bread Along With Their Meat"
>
> Starch grains found on 30,000-year-old grinding stones suggest that
> prehistoric humans may have dined on an early form of flatbread,
> contrary to their popular image as primarily meat eaters.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/science/19bread.html?_r=1&ref=science
>
> Johnnae >>>
>
> Hmmm.
>
> Why "bread"? Why not porridge? Made with smashed grain or roughly ground 
> grain rather than "flour" which, to me, sounds harder to do and not 
> necessarily more beneficial.
>
> Maybe it's just easier to cook flatbreads on flat rocks than cooking a 
> liquid.  Of course maybe porridge can be done easily enough without 
> grinding the grain at all? So the fact that these folks took the time to 
> create grinding stones and time to actually grind the grain might point to 
> bread.
>
> Of course the actual archeological report might have missing details that 
> weren't in this article.
>
> Comments? Bear?
>
> Stefan

I haven't read the article, but I suspect that the reason they specify 
"bread" is because this is 12,000 years before the first known pottery (and 
about 5,000 year before the first known ceramic figures, IIRC).  It is 
easier to bake bread on a flat rock than cook porridge in a non-existent 
pot.  My question would be, why bread?  Looking at the article, the evidence 
is starch from a tuber on stone tools from multiple sites used for crushing. 
Perhaps, the stones were used to crush the tuber to soften the tissue and 
make it easier to chew.  Unless the stones were found in conjunction with 
fire pits and bakestones, bread is speculation.

Bear