CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND—NBC News reports that researchers led by Emanuela Cristiani of the University of Cambridge examined micro-fossils in the dental calculus of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who lived in central Europe some 8,600 years ago. She found evidence that they ate starches such as wheat, barley, millet, peas, and lentils. The wheat and barley granules were consistent with early domestic species found in early Neolithic communities in southeastern Europe. She thinks the grains may have been introduced to the inland foragers through social networks 400 years before they adopted domesticated animals and farming tools. It had been thought that the domesticated plants, animals, farming tools, pottery, and timber houses usually associated with farming and the Neolithic age were adopted as a package. To read more, go to "Neolithic Europe's Remote Heart."
