How was bread invented?

The short answer

Bread originated over 14,000 years ago with early humans baking ground wild grains on hot stones. Over time, developments in agriculture, fermentation, and oven construction led to increasingly specialized and widespread bread production across ancient civilizations.

The long answer

Humans have been eating bread for thousands of years, but the loaf we know today didn’t pop out of the oven fully formed. It turns out we kneaded a lot of innovation, al-dough it sometimes came from a place you yeast expected.

Okay, enough with the crumby bread puns. Let's get this bread:

Stage #1: Combining grains with water and baking (~12,400 B.C.E.)

The archaeological site Shubayqa 1 in modern day Jordan where bread-like remains were discovered.

Source: ​National Academy of Sciences​

The earliest evidence of bread-making, dating back 14,400 years, was recently discovered in the Black Desert in Jordan. Archaeologists uncovered two structures each containing a stone fireplace, along with several charred breadcrumbs.

Under the microscope, these primitive breadcrumbs have a structure that shows signs of grains being ground, sieved, and kneaded into dough.

One of the carbonized crumbs found at the site. The line is a scale for 1mm.

Source: ​National Academy of Sciences​

These Stone Age bakers likely made bread by harvesting wild wheat and barley, mixing them with crushed up plant roots and water, and baking the dough on a hot flat stone or in fireplace ashes.

This evidence shows that early humans were making unleavened bread with fire over 14,000 years ago. We still had a long way to go from the soft rolls, crusty baguettes, and pillowy naan we know today, but this ancient flatbread would have been a huge breakthrough for our ancestors since cooked bread is easier to transport and digest (and enjoy) than uncooked mixes of grains and water.

Stage #2: Farming grains (~9500 B.C.E.)

Evidence of primitive baking suggests bread may have been one of the driving forces behind the invention of agriculture. Wild wheat and barley were already part of the diet, but processing them into flour required laborious dehusking and grinding.

Dehusked barley (left) and wheat (right) grains.

Left: "​Barley Seeds​" (modified) by ​Sanjay Acharya​ is licensed under ​CC BY-SA 4.0​. Right: "​গম Wheat ২০২০-১২-২২ ক​" by ​খাঁ শুভেন্দু ​ is licensed under ​CC BY-SA 4.0​.

Because of that effort, bread likely held special value and finding ways to cultivate and domesticate these grains could have sparked the move toward agriculture.

Starting around 9500 B.C.E., we have found evidence of some of the earliest crops grown in an area in the Middle East and Northern Africa, named the Fertile Crescent due to the shape of this rich early agricultural zone on a map. These early crops included wheat, barley, rye, lentils, chickpeas, and flax.

"​Map of fertile crescent​" by Nafsadh is licensed under ​CC BY-SA 4.0​.

The Natufians, the earliest known agricultural society, would have baked unleavened flatbread with ground domesticated grains over hot coals or stones by a fire.

Stage #3: Adding yeast (~6500-1200 B.C.E.)

Yeast is a microorganism that eats sugar and produces carbon dioxide, leading bread to rise over time. Determining precisely when we started adding yeast to bread is a difficult venture seeing as it's a transformative biological process, hence the wide time range in this section.

But the very earliest yeast + bread combos likely happened by accident by some early baker leaving uncooked dough lying around for a while. The natural airborne yeast would have started to feast on the dough and cause it to rise.

A small piece of 8,600 year old bread dough with leavened properties. Probably stale.

Source: ​Necmettin Erbakan University​

We actually have uncovered evidence of this accidental sourdough at an archaeological dig site in Turkey. A small, round, spongy artifact dated to 8,600 years ago was identified as a piece of fermented, uncooked dough.

But scholars generally agree that the first intentionally leavened yeast breads originated in Egypt. Around 3000-2500 B.C.E., Egyptians became leavened bread bakers and beer brewers, which both involve yeast.

It's unclear whether beer or bread came first. Some believe bread might have been made by skimming foam from beer and adding it to the dough. Others think bakers could have added some sourdough starter to the beer mash to speed fermentation.

Source: ​Revolution Fermentation​

We do know that the Egyptians' earliest leavened breads were sourdough. They likely saved a piece of dough each day to mix into the next batch, much like how bakers still keep their sourdough starters alive today.

Stage #4: Baking bread with ovens (~3000-500 B.C.E.)

Our next crusty innovation came when humans started baking bread with ovens. This breakthrough seemed to happen in multiple places around the world, with our earliest evidence found in Egypt from around 3000-2500 B.C.E.

An Old Kingdom Egyptian tomb scene depicting the bread-making process. In the bottom row, you can see the stacked bedjas preheating over a fire and bakers filling them with batter to be covered and baked.

Source: ​Ancient Egypt Research Associates​

Ancient Egyptian texts mention more than 30 kinds of bread, which means there was a lot of baking going on. From tomb scenes, we find that they seemed to bake using cone-shaped, mud-brick bowls called bedjas that they would pre-heat over fire. Once hot, workers would fill the bedja with batter and then place another hot bedja on top, creating a mini oven.

We've also found evidence of early ovens dated around 2450-2300 B.C.E. from the Indus Valley Civilization. In the ancient city of Kalibangan located in the modern Indian state of Rajasthan, archaeologists uncovered what looks to be early tandoor ovens.

Tandoor-like ovens were found at an archeological site in the modern Indian state of Rajasthan.

Source: ​Harappa.com​

Among other crops, the residents of Kalibangan grew wheat and likely used these clay ovens similarly to how present-day tandoor ovens are used. There would have been a fire at the bottom of the cylinder which created intense, long-lasting heat. Flat bread dough would have been placed on the inner walls to bake and peeled off when they were done.

Our last stop in our early oven tour is in Ancient Greece. Dated around 500 B.C.E., the earliest pre-heated oven that opened at the front is likely a Greek innovation.

Terracotta figure of a woman taking bread out of an oven, dated ~500 B.C.E.

"​Female baker oven Louvre MNE1333​" by ​Marie-Lan Nguyen​ is licensed under ​CC BY 2.5​.

Some scholars believe these Greek ovens even had a door which would have allowed for more heat control and efficiency with baking.

Stage #5: Mass production (~500-100 B.C.E.)

While we didn't see pre-sliced bread for about 2,000 years, bread was sold to the masses in Greece and Rome in the last centuries of B.C.E.

With their oven innovations, commercial Greek bakers began to sell bread in the agora (marketplace). But true mass production scaled up in Rome around 168 B.C.E., when a Collegium Pistorum (bakers’ guild) was founded to regulate the trade.

A scan of a stone carving dated ~100 B.C.E. showing an ancient Roman bakery.

Source: ​het MOT​

Rome's urban bakeries used rotary mills to grind grains and large brick ovens to bake hundreds or thousands of loaves every day. The Romans also started to specialize their bread varieties, baking light breads for upper classes and darker breads for lower classes. By the height of the Roman era, bread had become an industry feeding entire cities.

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Sources

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