What exact location was the Stone Age sorghum found in African cave?
Human Stone Age diet included processed grains A Canadian archeologist exploring a cave in Mozambique has found the earliest evidence of prehistoric humans using and processing wild grains for food. Julio Mercader of the University of Calgary found dozens of stone tools dating back more than 100,000 years ago containing traces of starch from wild sorghum. Mercader said the discovery means that early humans of this period had a more sophisticated diet than previously believed. “This happened during the Middle Stone Age, a time when the collecting of wild grains has conventionally been perceived as an irrelevant activity and not as important as that of roots, fruits and nuts,” said Mercader. Wild sorghum is the ancestor of the chief cereal crop now consumed in sub-Saharan Africa, where it’s milled and prepared as porridge, baked goods and sorghum beer. The stone tools were found during a 2007 excavation of a limestone cave near Lake Niassa in northwestern Mozambique. Mercader and colleag
U of C archeologist finds Stone Age man better fed than previously thought By Bill Graveland (CP) – 9 hours ago CALGARY — Long thought to have been full of mainly roots, fruit and nuts, Stone Age man’s pantry may also have included wild cereal grains, research suggests. Previously it was believed that prehistoric hunters and gatherers 100,000 years ago didn’t make a point of foraging for wild cereals. But the findings of archeologist Julio Mercader of the University of Calgary are changing that view. His work is being published in the Dec. 18 issue of the prestigious research journal Science. “We know in other parts of the world that about 20,000 years ago, hunters and gatherers were experimenting and expanding diets and using sophisticated techniques to intensify and eat things that they did not eat before,” Mercader says. “It goes back at least 80,000 years further than we have evidence for until now.” Mercader’s research, which he began in 2005, took him deep into the heart of Mozam
Harvesting of wild grains may have begun more than 100,000 years ago. Humans may have been baking bread 105,000 years ago, says a researcher who has discovered evidence of ground seeds from sorghum grass on stone tools in a Mozambique cave. » Full Story on nature.com Sources: http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=AvZeyh9yac2o2RmGZuYPy2d0fNdF/SIG=1240qkpdk/**http%3A//www.nature.com/news/2009/091217/full/news.2009.1147.
