Cooked starchy food in hearths ca. 120 kya and 65 kya (MIS 5e and MIS 4) from Klasies River Cave, South Africa

The first Australian plant foods at Madjedbebe, 65,000–53,000 years ago

“…Therefore, the expenditure of labour in the preparation of a range of recognised plant foods could have ensured reliable access to fats, proteins and carbohydrates required to successfully move into the region. The evidence for a broad plant food diet at Madjedbebe 65-53 kya is consistent with later Pleistocene archaeobotanical studies conducted in Island Southeast Asia and Sahul [8][9][10][11][12] , and with evidence for EMH diets in Africa and the Middle East [4][5][6] . As such, it indicates that plant exploitation was a fundamental aspect of EMH diets globally.…”

“…Extensive use and processing of plant resources, and an associated broadening of the diet, was therefore typically considered a late Pleistocene/early Holocene phenomenon, linked to changing foraging behaviours in the millennia prior to the emergence of agriculture 2,3 . However, while plant foods may not make up the dominant proportion of EMH diets globally, more recent research into plant macro-and micro-fossils is breaking down this paradigm: the use of plant foods, including those associated with later agricultural transitions, such as grass seeds and underground storage organs (USOs), is now evidenced in Middle Stone Age sites in Africa and the Middle East [4][5][6][7] ; the processing of toxic plants (Dioscorea hispida and Pangium edule) is now dated to as early as 46-34 kya in Niah Cave, Borneo [8][9][10] ; the translocation of yams (Dioscorea spp.) to high altitudes and management of monodrupe pandanus stands, facilitated early use of highland environments in New Guinea (~49 kya) 11,12 ; and associated plant-processing technologies, such as seed-grinding stones, are linked to EMH dispersal into northern Australia 13 .…”

Direct morpho-chemical characterization of elusive plant residues from Aurignacian Pontic Steppe ground stones

“…The role played by plants in the human diet is widely accepted since early times as demonstrated by the outstanding record of macrobotanical remains in the Acheulian site of Gesher-Benot Ya'aqov in Israel 55 . However, direct data of their intentional processing for consumption is scant and mostly circumstantial [5][6][7] . Late Pleistocene evidence consisting of a few grains of starch was reported from dental calculus 1, [56][57][58] although their interpretation as having a food origin and exposed to thermal treatment was contended 26 .…”

“…The consumption of starch-rich storage organs has been documented since the Middle Pleistocene through the extraction of starch grains from dental calculus, coprolites, and gut contents, which can be considered as direct evidence of their role in the diet [1][2][3][4] . On the other hand, charred roots and tubers recognized at early modern human sites in South Africa and in northwestern Australia [5][6][7] , and starch grains retrieved in sediments from Klissoura cave in Greece 8 represent indirect proof of starchy plant foraging. The Epipalaeolithic site of Ohalo II on the Galilee lake yielded a unique record of thousands of charred protoweeds and other plants remains as well as ground stones used to process starchy plants 9,10 .…”

The use of ash at Late Lower Paleolithic Qesem Cave, Israel—An integrated study of use-wear and residue analysis

“…Fire's dietary role is firmly documented as well as supported by present-day experimental work [2] and archaeological data [10][11][12]. The fact that fire served as a hub of social activities is also well-documented both in ethnographic studies [13 and references therein] and archaeological studies [10,[14][15][16][17][18], where detailed spatial distributions of material culture and faunal remains have provided fair reconstructions of human activities around hearths.…”