RAMAT GAN, ISRAEL—Researchers from Bar-Ilan University and Harvard University reconstructed the process of preparing wild barley into meal and flour some 12,500 years ago by experimenting with mortars carved into the bedrock at Huzuq Musa, a site in the Jordan Valley where as many as 100 hunter-gatherers once lived. “The conical, human-made hollows, found all over Southeast Asia, were noticed by archaeologists decades ago, but there was no agreement about their function,” Mordechai Kislev of Bar-Ilan University explained in a press release. The team members collected wild barley, separated the grains from the stalks, beat them on a threshing floor with a curved stick, sieved out the grains, and then turned to the ancient mortars. “Filled with a measure of the raw grain and beaten with a wooden pestle, the wider cones were used for hummeling—removal of the bristle that extends from the edge of the seed. The narrower cones came into play during the next stage, when the same wooden pestle was used to remove the grain husk,” added physicist Adiel Karty. Taking the husk off the grain makes it possible to grind it into flour and bake bread. For more on early agriculture, go to "Evidence of Trial Cultivation Found in Israel."
