How did mankind first discover the use of flour?

Question

It's easy to understand why we eat fruit, vegetables, animals etc,... but with flour, you'd have to figure out that the seeds of certain plants would make powder if you crushed them, then if you cultivated the plants and collected enough powder, you'd need to figure out that if you added water in the correct ratio, it would make a paste, which need to be heated to make something edible. What gave us a clue that this would work? It's hard to imagine trial and error...?

Answer 1

You see grinding stones about 19,000 years old in Northern Nubia.

Here's a little history about the consumption of grain.

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpre...

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpre...

Nubians started eating wild wheat, probably out of total desperation as the climate took a turn for the worse about then( dried out). The grains have have to be proccesed before you can eat them, so that's probably why they were ground.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Ground cereal grain predates recorded history.  This is true of wheat, rice, corn, barley and oats.  The rational behind the grinding process is probably two-fold.

The first has to do with the digestion process of humans.  The food value of grains is in the form of starch.  Starch is not readily digested unless the active enzymes can reach the solid material.

Amylase, an enzyme found in saliva, breaks down starch into simple sugars.  This is the reason why chewing on starchy materials tastes sweet if given enough time in the mouth.  Grains reduced to a powder will taste sweeter faster.

Infants and the elderly may not have sufficient teeth to make effective use of grains as food.  Pre-chewing (grinding) the kernels reduces the chewing time significantly.

This is not so much trial and error as creative problem solving.

Answer 4

That question opens up a much bigger can of worms. Did man discover it by chance? I can't think how a primitive man would have thought to try it either.

My own opinion favours that the knowledge of agriculture and the use of the products that changed man from hunter gatherer to farmer came from other sources.

Either it was remembered knowledge from civilisations that previously existed and then were destroyed, eg the Babylonians, the Mayans, or whatever came before them around the world in Asia America or Africa (Atlantians, Lemurians whatever you may like to belive)

Otherwise you may care to believe the other school of thought that favours intervention from beyond this planet that educated the species and gave them knowledge beyond their grasp.

Either way the idea that every basic thing we learned was by complete accident doesn't really sit well with me

What do you think?

Answer 5

to begin with man just used grains/wheat. as our minds and technology increased we started grinding the wheat. that was what wind mills where for. the wind spun the propeller and moved a giant stone wheel. a crude convayor belt was under this heavy wheel. the wheat was put onto the convayor belt and went under the wheel, grinding it into flour.

Answer 6

Grindstones are found world wide. I recall one campsite where the fire rings had grindstones incorporated into them. They were that common.

No doubt people chewed grains and roots. Somebody likely went "Hmm, better when chewed, why not bash with a rock and add water?" or they had an oldster that had lost most of their teeth and couldn't chew.

You seem to assume all of the flour  process of growing, grinding and cooking were accomplished in one event. There were many other events that lead to this. Camus is a root plant found in the Northwest. People would harvest it but traditionally leave the best and largest plants to reseed. They ground the roots, then cooked them in ovens. Note how similar to making flour this is.

I recall the story that leavened bread was 'invented" when Egyptian bakers worked the dough with their feet. Yeast between their toes caused the bread to rise.