Todd wrote:
> It's actually pretty significant, since 23,000 years ago is certainly
> within the paleolithic period, and at least 10,000 years before
> agriculture.  This in fact squarely refutes the claim that wheat and
> barley consumption started in the neolithic.

I would definitely like to see some more evidence pointing in that direction
before I accept that there was cereal consumption 23.000 years years ago -
it's a bit like the one fly that does not make a summer, isn't it?
Everything else, as far as I know, points att 10.000 years as being the
advent of agriculture.

> Now we know that
> hunter-gatherers in at least one locale gathered them, which raises the
> question of just how far back the practice goes.

I have never been able to picture people as gathering tiny seeds for direct
consumption. If it was worth the work more people would do it still. Picking
seeds would probably cost more calories than it gave back to the picker even
though seeds are high in calories. Since most seeds are poisonous only
severe starvation would tempt people into picking them and at that time they
would most likely not have the strength to do it anyway.
Well, me thinks...
Eva