For your info, new evidence given in the journal Nature (August 5,
2004), by archaeologists from the Smithsonian, Harvard, and the Univ of
Haifa, pushes back the date for the processing of domesticated wheat-
and barley-like grains to 23,000 years before the present era. The
search for evidence of when the first wild grains were first
systematically collected as food could even go back to 45,000 years
before present. But there is still no clear evidence that grinding
stones found dating back that far were used to grind cereal grains and
not just pigments.
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Public release date: 4-Aug-2004
Contact: Dr. Dolores Piperno
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202-786-2094 x8101
Smithsonian Institution
Oldest evidence for processing of wild cereals: starch grains from
barley, wheat, on grinding stone
When the water level in the Sea of Galilee dropped in 1989,
archaeologists rushed to excavate Ohalo II, an ancient human settlement.
On the floor of one hut they found a large, flat, basaltic stone. The
stone's uneven surface yielded starch grains of grass seeds, mostly from
wild barley and possibly also from wheat. This evidence presented in the
journal Nature (August 5, 2004), pushes back the date for the processing
of close wild relatives of domesticated wheat and barley, a key step in
cultural development, to 23,000 years before the present era. "Ten
thousand years before people were cultivating cereals, they were
processing wild barley: starch grain analysis establishes a clear link
between an intensive exploitation of wild cereals and the subsequent
development of plant cultivation and domestication in the region "
explains Dolores Piperno, lead author.
"We were very surprised by the abundance of seed remains we found on the
stone and how the evidence pointed to the processing of just a few types
of grass seeds. We could identify barley and there was no evidence for
the processing of roots or tubers, underground plant organs."
Piperno, from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the
Archaebiology Program at the National Museum of Natural History, and her
STRI colleague Irene Holst, had used starch analysis to chronicle plant
domestication in the New World tropics [see references, below].
Harvard University archaeologist, Ehud Weiss and Dani Nadel, at the
University of Haifa, had excavated a well-known paleo site in Israel,
Ohalo II and carried out analysis of the numerous macroscopic remains of
seeds and fruits found there. When Piperno and Weiss met for the first
time a few years ago at a conference luncheon, they discussed the
possibilities of applying starch grain analysis to artifacts from this
Old World site.
Starch grain analysis is painstaking work. First, a fine needle is used
to dislodge minute particles from the face of a grinding stone. Then,
the entire stone is placed in a sonicator, a water bath in which sound
waves vibrate the artifact until smaller particles float free. Each
microscopic starch grain is compared to starch grains from hundreds of
species maintained in a modern reference collection of plants. "We had
used starch grain analysis to study the development of agriculture in
the tropics, where plant materials are poorly preserved, "explained
Piperno. Significant and consistent differences in shape, size, and
other features make it possible to distinguish starch grains from
different plant species.
Evidence associated with an oven-like hearth also found at the site
suggests that dough may have been baked in much the same way that modern
nomadic tribes in the region still prepare seed cakes. Grinding and
baking cereal grains was an important nutritional advancement, making
carbohydrates more readily available for uptake into the bloodstream.
Grinding stones like the one found at Ohalo II have been excavated from
other Old World sites dated to 13,000 – 45,000 years before present, but
there has never been conclusive evidence to show that they were used to
grind cereal grains or other types of plants, and not pigments. "It will
be exciting to continue to analyze some of these older artifacts, to see
if we can find evidence that they were used to process plants. We're
trying to find answers to two big questions: When were the first wild
grains systematically collected as food and when did people begin to
process seeds and underground plant organs to turn them into more
digestible and nutritious dietary elements"
References:
This article: Piperno, D.R., Weiss, E., Holst, I., and Nabel, D. 2004.
Processing of wild cereal grains in the Upper Paleolithic revealed by
starch grain analysis. Nature (to appear in August 5, 2004 edition).
Piperno, D.R., Ranere, A.J., Holst, I. and Hansell, P. 2000. Starch
grains reveal early root crop horticulture in the Panamanian tropical
forest. Nature 407: 894-897.
Piperno, D.R., Holst, I. 1998. The presence of starch grains on
prehistoric stone tools from the lowland Neotropics. Indications of
early tuber use and agriculture in Panama. J. Archaeol. Sci. 25:
765-776.
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