ARCHAEOLOGY

TOP 10 DISCOVERIES OF 2018

THE FIRST BAKERS

Shubayqa, Jordan

About 14,400 years ago in the Black Desert of northeastern Jordan, someone was tinkering with the recipe for the perfect pita. This auspicious moment in culinary history has been captured by researchers who sampled the contents of two stone fireplaces at the site of Shubayqa 1. The team, led by University of Copenhagen archaeobotanist Amaia Arranz-Otaegui, found that the people living at this small campsite, hunter-gatherers who belonged to a culture known as the Natufians, were making unleavened bread-like products at least 4,000 years before the dawn of agriculture. Charred remains from the ovens suggest Natufians gathered wild cereals and tubers to make flour for the bread, which, at the time, was probably not a staple food, but a rare treat reserved for special occasions. “We were very surprised to find bread made before the origins of agriculture,” says Arranz-Otaegui. “Archaeologists have tended to ignore food remains that we don’t recognize, and I’m sure the remains of bread-like products even more ancient than these are everywhere.”

Meanwhile, a Stanford University team analyzed residues on three Natufian stone mortars unearthed roughly 150 miles east of Shubayqa 1, in Israel’s Raqefet Cave. They detected evidence that Natufians were brewing beer from wild wheat and barley 13,000 years ago, well before those grains

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from ARCHAEOLOGY

ARCHAEOLOGY3 min read
Painting By Roman Numerals
At some point, you inevitably want to repaint your dorm room, apartment, or house. You visit the hardware store, where you’re confronted with a dizzying array of colors with names like Tippy Toes and Lilting Laughter—these are real names from well-kn
ARCHAEOLOGY3 min read
Around The World
ENGLAND: The Cerne Abbas Giant has towered over the Dorset countryside for centuries, yet experts continue to debate when and why the 180-foot-tall figure was carved into the chalky hillside. New evidence indicates the giant was created between A.D.
ARCHAEOLOGY1 min read
Cuts Like A Shark
A pair of tiger shark teeth uncovered in separate caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are the oldest known examples of shark teeth employed as cutting implements. Based on the contexts in which the teeth were excavated, archaeologists Michelle

Related Books & Audiobooks