Human diet included wild cereals 100,000 years ago

[Michael]

It has been generally assumed up until now that human consumption of wild cereals began much closer to the actual domestication of grains (which is believed to have occurred within the past 10-12,000 years).

New research indicates significant inclusion of wild cereals in human diets 90,000-100,000 years ago.

The consumption of wild cereals among prehistoric hunters and gatherers appears to be far more ancient than previously thought, according to a University of Calgary archaeologist who has found the oldest example of extensive reliance on cereal and root staples in the diet of early Homo sapiens more than 100,000 years ago. Julio Mercader, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Tropical Archaeology in the U of C's Department of Archaeology, recovered dozens of stone tools from a deep cave in Mozambique showing that wild sorghum, the ancestor of the chief cereal consumed today in sub-Saharan Africa for flours, breads, porridges and alcoholic beverages, was in Homo sapiens' pantry along with the African wine palm, the false banana, pigeon peas, wild oranges and the African "potato." This is the earliest direct evidence of humans using pre-domesticated cereals anywhere in the world. Mercader's findings are published in the December 18 issue of the prestigious research journal Science.

Read the full article here.

One implication of this research is that wild cereals grew in sufficient abundance (at least in some places) to support seasonal habitation. The domestication of wild cereals might be a more logical extension of their use than previously imagined.

That is, after 70-80,000 years of including cereals in the basic diet, humans might not have been making that huge a leap forward by finally figuring out how to create farms. They might have been territorially claiming/protecting cereal harvests already, but allowing nature to take care of the planting and nurturing of the crops all along.