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      State of the (t)art. Analytical approaches in the investigation of components and production traits of archaeological bread-like objects, applied to two finds from the Neolithic lakeshore settlement Parkhaus Opéra (Zürich, Switzerland)

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          Abstract

          The site of Parkhaus Opéra is located on the north-eastern shore of Lake Zürich (Switzerland) and was documented during a rescue excavation in 2010 and 2011 by the Office for Urbanism, City of Zürich. Two charred bread-like objects were found in late Neolithic Layer 13 of the pile-dwelling, and are investigated using a novel set of analyses for cereal-based foodstuffs. Tissue remains of barley and wheat were identified, as well as a schizocarp of celery (cf. Apium graveolens), providing the first evidence for the use of bread condiments in the Neolithic. Cereal particle sizes were recorded and used to draw conclusions regarding milling and sieving of the raw material. Gas bubbles in the charred objects were measured in order to evaluate possible leavening of the dough. The outcomes of this research significantly advance the understanding of the production traits of cereal-based food during the Neolithic. The analytical techniques proposed by this study open up new possibilities for systematic and consistent investigations of cereal-based archaeological foodstuffs.

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          Processing of wild cereal grains in the Upper Palaeolithic revealed by starch grain analysis.

          Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and wheat (Triticum monococcum L. and Triticum turgidum L.) were among the principal 'founder crops' of southwest Asian agriculture. Two issues that were central to the cultural transition from foraging to food production are poorly understood. They are the dates at which human groups began to routinely exploit wild varieties of wheat and barley, and when foragers first utilized technologies to pound and grind the hard, fibrous seeds of these and other plants to turn them into easily digestible foodstuffs. Here we report the earliest direct evidence for human processing of grass seeds, including barley and possibly wheat, in the form of starch grains recovered from a ground stone artefact from the Upper Palaeolithic site of Ohalo II in Israel. Associated evidence for an oven-like hearth was also found at this site, suggesting that dough made from grain flour was baked. Our data indicate that routine processing of a selected group of wild cereals, combined with effective methods of cooking ground seeds, were practiced at least 12,000 years before their domestication in southwest Asia.
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            The early chronology of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) in Europe

            The majority of the early crops grown in Europe had their origins in south-west Asia, and were part of a package of domestic plants and animals that were introduced by the first farmers. Broomcorn millet, however, offers a very different narrative, being domesticated first in China, but present in Eastern Europe apparently as early as the sixth millennium BC. Might this be evidence of long-distance contact between east and west, long before there is any other evidence for such connections? Or is the existing chronology faulty in some way? To resolve that question, 10 grains of broomcorn millet were directly dated by AMS, taking advantage of the increasing ability to date smaller and smaller samples. These showed that the millet grains were significantly younger than the contexts in which they had been found, and that the hypothesis of an early transmission of the crop from east to west could not be sustained. The importance of direct dating of crop remains such as these is underlined.
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              Influence of time, temperature, moisture, ingredients, and processing conditions on starch gelatinization.

              D D Lund (1984)
              Starch gelatinization phenomena is extremely important in many food systems. This review focuses on factors affecting gelatinization characteristics of starch. Important variables which must be considered in design of processes in which starch undergoes gelatinization are heat of gelatinization and temperature of gelatinization. Major interactions are reviewed for the effects of lipids, moisture content, nonionic constituents and electrolytes on these characteristics. Furthermore, treatment of starch-containing systems prior to heating into the gelatinization temperature range can have a significant effect on ultimate gelatinization characteristics.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: ResourcesRole: SupervisionRole: ValidationRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ResourcesRole: ValidationRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Funding acquisitionRole: ResourcesRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Funding acquisitionRole: Project administrationRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Funding acquisitionRole: ResourcesRole: Validation
                Role: Resources
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: ValidationRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Funding acquisitionRole: ValidationRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Funding acquisitionRole: Project administrationRole: ValidationRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                3 August 2017
                2017
                : 12
                : 8
                : e0182401
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Austrian Archaeological Institute (ÖAI), Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), Wien/Vienna, Austria
                [2 ] Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science (IPAS/IPNA), University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
                [3 ] Office for Urbanism Zürich, Underwater Archaeology and Laboratory for Dendrochronology, Zürich, Switzerland
                [4 ] Cantonal Archaeology of Zürich, Dübendorf, Switzerland
                [5 ] Center for Archaeological Sciences, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
                [6 ] Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences (RBINS), Brussels, Belgium
                [7 ] University of Hohenheim, Institute of Botany (210), Stuttgart, Germany
                [8 ] School of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
                University at Buffalo - The State University of New York, UNITED STATES
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                ‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2989-7259
                Article
                PONE-D-17-18681
                10.1371/journal.pone.0182401
                5542691
                28771539
                bd533e6d-1ad6-474e-b8b1-1ae50739a318
                © 2017 Heiss et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 15 May 2017
                : 17 July 2017
                Page count
                Figures: 19, Tables: 1, Pages: 30
                Funding
                Funded by: H2020 European Research Council
                Award ID: ERC-2015-CoG 682529
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Cantonal Archaeology of Zürich
                Award ID: n.a.
                This work was supported by the Cantonal Archaeology of Zürich ( http://www.are.zh.ch/internet/baudirektion/are/de/service/international.html) to CH, NB, FA, MK, and AGH. Data evaluation and manuscript production was funded by the H2020 European Research Council in the project PLANTCULT (ERC-2015-CoG 682529, http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/202606_en.html) to SMV, AGH, FA, SJ, and HPS. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Nutrition
                Diet
                Food
                Bread
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Nutrition
                Diet
                Food
                Bread
                Social Sciences
                Archaeology
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Plants
                Grasses
                Barley
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Agriculture
                Crop Science
                Crops
                Cereal Crops
                Social Sciences
                Archaeology
                Archaeological Excavation
                Earth Sciences
                Geology
                Geologic Time
                Stone Age
                Neolithic Period
                Social Sciences
                Archaeology
                Historical Archaeology
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Plants
                Grasses
                Wheat
                Custom metadata
                The raw data for all measurements are submitted via the Supporting Information. The specimens (find no. 2010.012.2285.3 and find no. 2010.012.2907.5) are accessible to scientists in a permanent repository on demand: Cantonal Archaeology of Zürich / Kantonsarchäologie Zürich, Stettbachstrasse 7, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland. Contact: are.archaeologie@ 123456bd.zh.ch / +41 (0) 32 259 69 00.

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