Bread and porridge at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe: A new method to recognize products of cereal processing using quantitative functional analyses on grinding stones

Abstract

The Early Neolithic site Göbekli Tepe which has delivered the largest corpus of grinding stones known by now in Northern Mesopotamia is used as a case study to test the possibility of wear classification and the application of quantification methods in use-wear caused by the processing of cereals. The research design is based on combined optical and tactile analyses as well as geometric analyses of shape deformation and 3D-modelling of surface roughness on original grinding stones and experimentally used replicas. This approach can be used to differentiate between fine and coarse flour as products of cereal processing as they produce different wear markers. Also, it can be applied to quantify use-lives of handstones. At Göbekli Tepe, handstones with markers for fine flour production, which can be possibly linked to bread-like products, are in the minority while handstones with markers for coarse flour clearly predominate. The social implications of these results have to be discussed with a view towards Göbekli Tepe’s interpretation as a ritual site. We propose fine flour as a special product within feasting, in accordance with previous interpretations of the site.