This page begins to bring together the foundational texts and the study of ancient breads.

Lara Carretero is a leading archeobotanist. One of her specialties is scanning electron microscopy. She is most well known for her analysis of the Epipaleolithic carbonized starches excavated from the Natufian Shubayqa 1 site in Jordan from which the so far earliest probably crumb of bread has been found. Dating to 14,400 years ago, it is a transformational find.

Carretero has been thinking about the foundational bread cultures of the Near Eas for many yearst. Her PhD thesis under the eminent archeobotanist, Dorian Fuller, is a foundational text for those of us interested in the early history of bread.

Academic research is often a community project. There is a way in which the works of Carrero, heist, Samuel, and Nesbitt form an intellectual whole.

Carretero acknowledges the review of her work by Andreas Heiss, whose meticulous analysis of ancient bread remains is the standard that other archeobtanists follow. His thesis, Fifty Shades of Grain, complement Carretero’s work.

For those of you new to the archeobotany of ancient grains and breads I refer you to Delwen Samuel and Mark Nesbitt. Their work provides the foundation on which the modern study of ancient starches rests. Their joint website (formerly ancientgrains.org) is no longer on the Internet, You can access their site through the Wayback Machine. Wayback archives of sites are often slow to load. Be patient. The site includes all of their published papers through 2017. Samuel is also known for her foundational work in Egyptian beer and bread. She is known as an innovator in the use of modern analytic techniques to get information from archaeological finds.