World's Oldest Known Granaries

A new study coauthored by Ian Kuijt, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, describes recent excavations in Jordan that reveal evidence of the world’s oldest know granaries, reports the news bureau of the University of Notre Dame, South Bend. The appearance of the granaries represents a critical evolutionary shift in the relationship between people and plant foods.

In a paper appearing in the 23 June 2009 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, Kuijt and Bill Finlayson, director, Council for British Research in the Levant, describe recent excavations at Dhra near the Dead Sea in Jordan that provide evidence of granaries that precede the emergence of fully domesticated plants and large-scale sedentary communities by at least 1,000 years.

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