Luc De Bry wrote:

>> About dates : Man learnt to control and to use the fire some 700,000
>> years ago.  Millstones were used in High-Egypt some 17,000 years BC.
>> The first cultures of cereals happened in the fertile crescent some
>> 10,000 years B.C.

And Andy Millard replied:

>Actually cultivation begins about 8000 BC / 10000 *BP*.
>
>> The technology to detoxify grains and beans must have existed BEFORE
>> agriculture.
>
>Certainly.  For example, we have the Natufian culture in Syria/Palestine
>immediately preceding the Neolithic, with a dependence on collection of
>wild cereals, including grindstones

Just to clarify the dates further here. The question of control over fire
is actually quite controversial, with various estimates for earliest
control ranging from 230,000 years to 1.5 million years ago. Which figure
you take as definitive depends on which circumstantial evidence one is
willing to accept as reliable, and how critically you qualify what kind of
behavior the circumstantial evidence actually signifies. Many recent
authorities do not seem to give reliable credit to any dates for control
over fire much longer than about 400,000 years ago, although that might
well turn out in hindsight to be overly conserative. But nobody really
knows for sure right now. [See: James, SR (1989) "Hominid use of fire in
the lower and middle Pleistocene. A review of the evidence." Current
Anthropology, 30:1-26, for the most extensive in-depth critique of known
fire-sites to that time. James will only credit 230,000 years ago; however,
there have been discoveries since his paper that would push the date back
some to around 400,000 years, probably to the satisfaction of most critics.]

Regarding grains: "Cultivation" is the key word regarding dating. *Wild*
grains were in fact beginning to be gathered by 17,000 B.C. by people in
the Levant (Middle East) and being ground into flour with mortar-and-pestle
at this time, though cultivation did not begin until considerably later as
Andy states. The Natufians were the successors to the very earliest
grain-gatherers, and were themselves also gathering wild grains intensively
(also using grindstones) around 13,000 B.C. prior to the introduction of
agricultural cultivation. [See the Smithsonian's "Timelines of the Ancient
World," 1993, ed. by Chris Scarre, New York: Dorling-Kinderley, pp. 56, 61,
for a brief account.]

For those who have a special interest in this time period, The American
Museum of Natural History has out a beautifully produced full-color book
with equal emphasis on photographs of archeological artifacts and sites, as
well as very absorbing articles understandable to the layperson, written by
authorities in the field who have authored peer-reviewed papers elsewhere.
It covers the entire transition period from late Paleolithic to Neolithic
and the introduction of grains/farming. This book used to be $40 US, but
has been on close-out in recent months for $20 in our local Barnes & Noble
bookstore chain. [See: "People of the Stone Age: Hunter-Gatherers and Early
Farmers" (1993) ed. by Goran Burenhult, New York: Harper-Collins.]

--Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]> Wichita, KS