On Fri, 2 Feb 2007 15:23:42 -0600, Robert Kesterson <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:
>Actually, if you pound/grind the seeds, add water, and let it sit for a  
>few days, you will wind up with a sourdough starter.  Put it on a slab  
>next to a campfire and you'll have bread.  I suspect both bread and  
>alcohol (which are both products of yeast fermentation) were discovered 
by  
>accident in much the same way.

Do you have evidence of Stone Age sourdough bread, or are you making an 
educated guess?

My understanding was that wheat has to be milled into a flour in order to 
produce the yeast necessary for sourdough, because the starch of the wheat 
is not accessible to the yeast without milling. Also, the process of 
making risen bread by using yeast supposedly did not start until thousands 
of years after flat breads were invented. A quick search produced the 
following. While this account is not likely definitive, it confirms my 
general understanding of the history of bread.


Q.  When did people start baking bread?   
A. There is evidence from 4000 BC in the Swiss lake habitations that the 
people baked unleavened, flat bread made from barley and rye flour. [Note: 
I recall seeing flat bread traced back to around 8000 BC in Egypt or the 
Levant.]

Q.  When did people start to bake risen bread?   
A. In about 2600 BC, there is evidence that the ancient Egyptians baked 
bread in public bake houses. 

http://www.warburtons.co.uk/education/ask_warburtons/history_bread/answer_o
ne.html

Interestingly, I did find this, which is the first reference to a grain 
food product made in the Stone Age I've seen. This is along the lines of 
what I was talking about as a possible late-Stone-Age grain product that 
might have been consumed before the invention of bread:

"in the Stone Age, people made solid cakes from stone-crushed barley and 
wheat."

http://www.botham.co.uk/bread/history1.htm

However, this site gives no date and no references.