Evolution and humans: bread making over 14,000 years ago (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, July 17, 2018, 15:17 (2319 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Wild cereals had to harvested by hunter-gatherers to do this:

https://phys.org/news/2018-07-archaeologists-bread-predates-agriculture-years.html

Tony: I always hate this imagery of ancient humans as knuckle dragging idiots. I mean, the process of baking requires more than just work.

How does a person make the logical leap between crunchy hard crap on the end of grass to "If I add milk and other stuff, smoosh it around just so, and throw it into a fire for a little while I'll get something tasty."

That does not sound like the thought process of a knuckle dragging idiot. It requires a LOT of abstract thought, really. I can see them husking and soaking grains in milk or water to soften them, but how to go from that to bread? Food fight? Maybe someone was playing around, smooshed up some in their hand while their mother yelled at them to stop playing with their food so they tossed the smooshed up bit on a rock next to a fire. I mean, I can see it happening as an odd random seeming chain of events, but really, it seems to me that they were more intelligent and had more knowledge than we give them credit for. Hence the reason archaeologist are continuously 'surprised' by what early humans knew.

It also implies they discussed this process with a fairly sophisticated language which is supposed to have developed in the past 50,000 years.