Tiny pieces of bread found from 14,500 years ago, predating known agriculture
From Tobias Richter and Amaia Arranz-Otaegui at Sapiens: The Natufian, dated to 11,700–15,000 years ago, is often described as an important cultural precursor to the Neolithic era. During the Natufian, the world’s earliest stone houses, grinding tools, and sickle blades appear in large numbers in the Levant, suggesting that the hunter-gatherers here included plants, cereals amongst them, more frequently in their everyday diet. Natufian hunter-gatherers were also more sedentary than preceding Paleolithic societies, which may have pushed them onto a road of no return toward plant cultivation and agriculture. … When Arranz-Otaegui told her that it was from a 14,500-year-old hunter-gatherer site in Jordan, it was Carretero’s turn to be stunned. The site was thousands of years older than Çatalhöyük. Read More ›