Archaeologists Discover 8600-year-old Bread at atalhyk May be the Oldest Bread in the World

[Judi Lynn]

Archaeologists have discovered about 8,600-year-old bread at Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic settlement in central Turkey.

Çatalhöyük is noteworthy because it is one of the first human proto-cities to have been built. Full of densely packed mud brick houses covered in paintings and symbolic decorations, its population hovered around 8,000. That made it one of the biggest settlements of its era, somewhere between an outsized village and a tiny city. People, mud-brick homes through ceiling doors, and they navigated sidewalks that wound around the city’s rooftops.

Archaeologists have discovered an oven structure in the area called “Mekan 66”. Around the largely destroyed oven, wheat, barley, pea seeds, and a handful find that could be food were found.

Analyses conducted at Necmettin Erbakan University Science and Technology Research and Application Center (BITAM) determined that the spongy residue was fermented bread from 6600 B.C.

Head of the Excavation Committee and Anadolu University Faculty Member Associate Professor Ali Umut Türkcan told the AA correspondent that when “archaeology” is mentioned, structures, monuments, and finds come to mind.

More:
https://arkeonews.net/archaeologists-discover-8600-year-old-bread-at-catalhoyuk-may-be-the-oldest-bread-in-the-world/

[Warpy]

1. While it could have been a communal oven

what they most likely discovered is evidence of the world's earliest commercial bakery. It sounds like a large variety was produced on site instead of in scattered village houses to be baked there.