Mozambican Grass Seed Consumption During the Middle Stone Age

Abstract

Seed for Food The seeds of grain-producing plants are more difficult to harvest than nuts or fruits as food. It has been unclear when early humans began to rely extensively on grains, but Mercader (p. 1680 ) has discovered films of starch residues on stone tools at a cave site in Mozambique dating to about 100,000 years ago. The residues are consistent with starch grains from wild sorghum and indicate that early humans relied on cereals much earlier than previously thought. The Mozambican example of sorghum exploitation thus represents the longest known tradition of cereal use in the world.