1. Grinding flour in Upper Palaeolithic Europe (25 000 years bp)
- Author
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Aranguren, Biancamaria, Becattini, Roberto, Lippi, Marta Mariotti, and Revedin, Anna
- Subjects
Starch -- Identification and classification -- Usage ,Flour -- Usage ,Wild plants, Edible -- Natural history -- Usage -- Analysis ,Anthropology/archeology/folklore ,Identification and classification ,Usage ,Analysis ,Natural history - Abstract
The authors have identified starch grains belonging to wild plants on the surface of a stone from the Gravettian hunter-gatherer campsite of Bilancino (Florence, Italy), dated to around 25 000 bp. The stone can be seen as a grindstone and the starch has been extracted from locally growing edible plants. This evidence can be claimed as implying the making of flour--and presumably some kind of bread--some 15 millennia before the local 'agricultural revolution'. Keywords: Gravettian, cat's tail, flour, grindstone, reedmace, starch, Typha, Introduction By virtue of the surviving evidence, the diet of Palaeolithic people has been considered primarily carnivorous, and there has been little evidence for the exploitation of plants. The research [...]
- Published
- 2007