Porridge for a Palaeolithic dinner. Experimenting the multistep processing of Oats

Residue analyses on a Gravettian grinding tool recovered at Grotta Paglicci sub-layer 23A (32.614±429 cal. BP), Southern Italy, have demonstrated that early modern humans collected and processed various plants. The recording of starch grains attributable to Avena (oat) caryopses expands our information about the food plants used for producing flour in Europe, during the Palaeolithic, and about the origins of a food tradition persisting up to the present in the Mediterranean basin. The particular state of preservation of the starch grains suggests the use of a thermal treatment before grinding, possibly to accelerate drying of the plants, making the following process easier and faster. The goal of the present communication is to reconstruct the technologies for complex processing of the whole oat caryopses to obtain flour, including de-husking and thermal pre-treatment before grinding.