最古老的面包現(xiàn)身中東 約有14000年歷史

Historians and archaeologists have traditionally linked bread to the dawn of agriculture, when people domesticated plants such as wheat, cultivated them and ground them into flour.

傳統(tǒng)意義上，歷史學家和考古學家都認為面包出現(xiàn)于農(nóng)業(yè)誕生初期，那個時候人們才開始種植作物，再把糧食研磨成粉。

But a new discovery of blackened crumbs at an ancient stone building in the Middle East indicates that people were baking bread thousands of years earlier. Based on the radiocarbon dates of charred plants in nearby fireplaces, the food scraps are about 14,400 years old. That’s about 4,000 years before agriculture emerged, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

然而，但是，在中東一幢古老的石頭建筑中發(fā)現(xiàn)的一些黑色的碎屑表明，人們早在數(shù)千年前就會做面包了。根據(jù)放射性碳定年法，旁邊的壁爐里燃燒物有14400年的歷史，比農(nóng)業(yè)的出現(xiàn)早了4000年，據(jù)星期一發(fā)表在《美國國家科學院院刊》的一篇文章報道。

“Our work shows that bread was not a product of settled, complex societies but a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer society,” said study author Amaia Arranz Otaegui, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen.

文章作者、哥本哈根大學博士后研究員阿馬婭·阿蘭斯·奧泰吉說：“我們的研究表明，面包不是定居、復雜社會的產(chǎn)物，而是舊石器狩獵采集時代的產(chǎn)物。”

Archaeologists found the bread remains in sediment samples at a site named Shubayqa 1 in Jordan. The structure was oval with a fireplace in the center. Arranz Otaegui said she did not know whether the building was a dwelling or had other, perhaps ceremonial, purposes.

考古學家在約旦Shubayqa 1遺址地區(qū)發(fā)現(xiàn)的這些仍是沉積物樣本的面包。這座建筑呈橢圓形，中間有一座壁爐。奧泰吉說她不知道這個建筑是用于居住還是有其他用處，也許是用于祭祀儀式。

Sifting through the sediment, Arranz Otaegui noticed samples she couldn’t place at first; they were not seeds, nuts or charred wood. Instead, they looked just like the crumbs that accumulate at the bottom of a toaster. Study author and University College London graduate student Lara Gonzalez Carretero, using Natufian technology, has been experimentally re-creating the flour and dough. Pores in the samples mimicked the bubbles that appeared in the re-created bread.

通過對沉積物的過濾，奧泰吉注意到一些她一開始無法確定的樣本：它們不是種子、堅果或燒焦的木頭，卻很像是面包爐底部累積的面包屑。另一位研究人員、倫敦大學學院的拉臘·岡薩雷斯·卡雷特羅通過納吐夫技術再造了面粉和生面團，樣本中的氣孔和再造面包上的氣泡很像。

“The main criteria on the identification of bread is its porous texture,” Arranz Otaegui said. “If we take other foodstuffs like porridge or gruel, we will see pieces of grain but not all these micro-pores.” She said the closest common bread to these crumbs might be a pita, but she also said the Natufian bread was probably unleavened, like matzoh or tortillas.

奧泰吉稱：“確定其為面包的主要依據(jù)就是它的多孔構造，如果是麥片粥或燕麥粥之類的食物，碎屑中會有谷物的碎片而不是這些細孔。”奧泰吉說有這種碎屑的面包應該很像皮塔餅，不過她也說這些納吐夫面包是未發(fā)酵的，像猶太逾越節(jié)薄餅和墨西哥玉米面餅那樣。

Archaeologists knew that hunter-gatherers in this region could grind and bake food, “The Shubayqa breadlike find is, however, the first of its kind,” he said.

考古學家們知道，該地區(qū)的狩獵采集者可以研磨和烘烤食物。他說：“這種舒巴卡式面包的發(fā)現(xiàn)尚系首例。”

Cereal plants are high in calories. The traditional view was that early farmers domesticated those plants first, and then bakers began to turn cereals into bread. Study author Dorian Fuller, a professor of archaeobotany at University College London, said the discovery made him question “whether domestication was really driven by caloric necessity,” as has been claimed.

谷類植物的熱量很高。傳統(tǒng)觀點認為，早期的農(nóng)民首先馴化了這些植物，然后面包師開始把谷物變成面包。該研究的作者、倫敦大學學院的植物考古學教授多里安·富勒說，這一發(fā)現(xiàn)讓他質疑“人們可能不是因為要獲得身體的熱量才開始種植作物。”

It was unclear to the study authors whether these breads were regularly eaten or occasional meals, or perhaps even luxury foods; other researchers have suggested that bread and beer were consumed during Natufian feasts.

這些研究人員們還不能確定這些面包是日常食用還是偶爾吃，或者是否是一種奢侈品。其他研究人員認為，只有在納圖夫人(注：約公元1萬年前的史前人)的宴會上人們才會吃面包和啤酒。