by
Naomi Newman, Archaeological Journalist, UK
The history of grain storage is both older than and interlinked to the history of farming. Cooked and uncooked grains have been recovered from the teeth of our Neanderthal cousins, almost 30,000 years before the Agricultural Revolution.
The first farmers are thought to have been the Natufian people, nomads originally from Egypt. They practiced seasonal occupation, which included areas of the Levant; and stored their harvest in leather bags or woven baskets. Approximately three weeks of harvesting could feed a family of four for a year.
The Younger Dryas caused massive climate change, particularly across Europe and
the Middle East. This reduced the Steppe land of the Levant, causing humans to
settle around lakes and water courses. They planted the last of their grain
store and cared for the plants to which they had become accustomed.
A more settled lifestyle allowed for the production of non-transportable storage vessels such as pottery as well as grain-processing technologies such as the sickle or the pestle-and-mortar. Grain was stored in grain bins and silos (earliest discovered dates to circa 11,300 cal BP in Dhra, Jordan Valley).
Cereal grains had transitioned from a high calorie supplement to be the main food source people depended upon. It allowed for population expansion, providing more people to work the fields, a larger surplus, and the discovery of alcohol. Wheat grains naturally start fermenting when they get wet. What may, at first glance, have appeared to be a ruined store of grain transformed into one of humanities favourite drinks - beer.
The grain surplus, in turn, allowed for the development of elites and the social hierarchy we are accustomed to. In a farming society a surplus is needed to feed artists, artisans, chieftains, accountants, traders and all other non-farmers.
The dependence upon a surplus left people vulnerable to famine via environmental degradation. This was partially resolved by storing grain in multiple silos; in this way, if rot occurs in one silo it cannot spread to the whole supply. It is also a lot more time consuming for grain thieves to break into multiple silos rather than just one. Silos are easy to recognise in the archaeological record as they usually have a circular base and there will be many of them lined up neatly in rows.
Read more HERE.
The history of grain storage is both older than and interlinked to the history of farming. Cooked and uncooked grains have been recovered from the teeth of our Neanderthal cousins, almost 30,000 years before the Agricultural Revolution.
The first farmers are thought to have been the Natufian people, nomads originally from Egypt. They practiced seasonal occupation, which included areas of the Levant; and stored their harvest in leather bags or woven baskets. Approximately three weeks of harvesting could feed a family of four for a year.
A more settled lifestyle allowed for the production of non-transportable storage vessels such as pottery as well as grain-processing technologies such as the sickle or the pestle-and-mortar. Grain was stored in grain bins and silos (earliest discovered dates to circa 11,300 cal BP in Dhra, Jordan Valley).
Cereal grains had transitioned from a high calorie supplement to be the main food source people depended upon. It allowed for population expansion, providing more people to work the fields, a larger surplus, and the discovery of alcohol. Wheat grains naturally start fermenting when they get wet. What may, at first glance, have appeared to be a ruined store of grain transformed into one of humanities favourite drinks - beer.
The grain surplus, in turn, allowed for the development of elites and the social hierarchy we are accustomed to. In a farming society a surplus is needed to feed artists, artisans, chieftains, accountants, traders and all other non-farmers.
The dependence upon a surplus left people vulnerable to famine via environmental degradation. This was partially resolved by storing grain in multiple silos; in this way, if rot occurs in one silo it cannot spread to the whole supply. It is also a lot more time consuming for grain thieves to break into multiple silos rather than just one. Silos are easy to recognise in the archaeological record as they usually have a circular base and there will be many of them lined up neatly in rows.
Read more HERE.
The Global Miller
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