Researchers have found the world's oldest example bread. A research team the universities of Cambridge, Copenhagen and London found ancient breadcrumbs while an archaeological dig Jordan. The breadcrumbs were charred and burnt, which is how they survived so long. The researchers dated the crumbs and found they were roughly 14,400 years old. This means that people the Stone Age were baking bread. The researchers said humans were making bread 4,000 years earlier than scientists thought. The people who baked the bread lived Jordan from 12,500 to 9,500 B.C. They were hunter-gatherers and lived thousands years before humans settled to become farmers.
The researchers discovered 24 burnt breadcrumbs. They analyzed them and found they were made cereal plants such as barley, wheat and oats. Lead researcher, Dr Amaia Otaegui, said the bread took a long time to make. The ancient Jordanians began grinding cereals a fine flour. They then mixed the flour water to make dough. After that, they baked it the hot ashes a fireplace or on a hot stone. The bread looked the flat pitta bread still made across the Middle East today. Another researcher said the bread could be one reason the agricultural revolution starting. Stone Age people realized it was easier and more convenient to farm the wheat bread instead of gathering it the wild.
