Porridge but No Bread: What was on the Menu in Neolithic Denmark?

One of the most profound shifts in human prehistory occurred around 10,000 years ago. Our ancestors figured out that the plants they were eating did not need to grow where they were found: with the right approach they could grow anywhere you chose to grow them. And then everything began to change.

This is known as the Neolithic Revolution in agriculture, and it led to everything from the domestication of farm animals to the establishing of settlements, villages, and cities. Out with the nomadic hunting and gathering, in with a settled life, a population boom and, eventually, civilization itself.

There are still many questions about how this happened, as indeed there are about most everything this far back into the past. But thanks to a new study published in Springer Nature we may have the answers to just a few more of the questions.

The study focuses on a site from the early Neolithic in Denmark, around 3,600 BC. The site was a settlement of the prehistoric peoples known as the Funnel Beaker culture, principally because they made beakers with funnels. Not just a clever name then.

The location of the site and its arrangement (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00334-024-01020-9) — *The location of the site and its arrangement (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00334-024-01020-9*)

For a millennia and a half this loose-knit culture spread across northern Europe. They were agriculturalists, and evidence from the site, at Frydenlund, has revealed which crops they were growing here, and for what purpose.

Evidence recovered from the site includes fruits and carbonized seeds: cooked whole for consumption. Several grinding stones were also discovered at the site, and microscopic analysis of their grinding surfaces allowed the team to assess what they were using for the flour they would use to make their bread.

And this is where things get a little weird. The grindstones do not, in fact, appear to have been used for grinding the wheat found at the site, but instead were used exclusively for grinding wild plants. There is plenty of evidence of wheat, with seeds of durum and emmer wheats as well as naked barley found at Frydenlund, but it wasn’t what they were grinding.

Starch granules found from the grinding stones, which notably do not include wheat (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00334-024-01020-9) — *Starch granules found from the grinding stones, which notably do not include wheat (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00334-024-01020-9*)

This led the team, led by archaeobotanist Dr. Welmoed Out from Moesgaard Museum in Denmark, to an unexpected conclusion. The Funnel Beaker people who lived here were not making bread at all, they were instead eating the cooked seeds in a sort of porridge, or gruel. Without sugar too: grim stuff.

It had been previously thought that the Funnel Beaker culture had access to spelt, an ideal wheat for bread making. However the “spelt” at Frydenlund is apparently misidentified emmer wheat, deformed by heat as part of the cooking process.

The study suggests that this is a wider classification error than this one site, and that in fact the Funnel Beaker culture may not have been cooking spelt at all. Were any of them making bread?

This rather begs the question: what were they grinding at Frydenlund. Microscopic analysis suggests it was mostly grasses of the Pooideae family. Although this family includes wheat and barley, this does not appear to be what they were grinding: if they were grinding wheat, we would be able to see it in the remains.

As the study states: “… unexpectedly, there is no evidence that the grinding stones were used for cereal de-husking and/or grinding, since cereal chaff phytoliths and cereal starch grains could not be positively demonstrated. Instead, the presence of starch indicates the use for grinding of unknown wild plants.”

It remains to be seen whether this is an isolated and unusual case, or whether we are mistaken to assume that these Neolithic people were making bread at all. As we said before, there is a lot about our past that we still have to learn.

Original Study: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00334-024-01020-9.

Header Image: The Neolithic Funnel Beaker people at this Danish site were using grindstones and harvesting wheat, but they were making porridge, not bread. Source: Nationalmuseet / CC BY-SA 3.0.