Stone Age Humans Ate Meat And . . . . . Bread!

Mention stone age and the image of a grizzly human, wearing an animal skin and chomping down on a raw hunk of meat, immediately comes to mind. However, paleontologists have recently discovered that while the first two may be accurate, the cavemen's diet may have been more balanced - one that included even bread.

The notion that humans who lived 30,000 years ago survived only on meat, was an assumption made because grains are hard to grind and cook and also require tools - skills that scientists did not believe the early human possessed.

In fact, scientists considered the invention of bread and other grain-based products, as a sign of human evolution - the earliest of which was spotted, on 20,000 year-old grinding stones found in Israel.

Now, thanks to powerful telescopes, signs of grains have been discovered under the grinding stones found in Italy, Russia and the Czech Republic that belonged to humans who lived at least 30,000 years ago - forcing scientists to re-evaluate their original thesis.

Scientists think that the stone-age humans, peeled carbohydrate-rich roots like cattail and fern, ground and mixed them with water and then cooked the resulting paste over a hot stone. The end-result resembled a crunchy pita or flatbread that was probably not very tasty, but then the cavemen's taste buds were probably not as sophisticated or fussy as those of modern humans.

This is not the first time these pre-historic humans have surprised us. In 2007, paleontologists discovered that these enterprising men and women used fire to make tools - 50,000 years earlier, than we had originally thought. They were obviously much smarter and more sophisticated than we give them credit for!

Sources: dailymail.co.uk, news.yahoo.com