Archaeologists Uncover 7,000-Year-Old Focaccia Seasoned With Animal Fats and Plant Oils

Imagine digging into a freshly baked and seasoned focaccia with your friends and family. No, these aren’t just your upcoming Thanksgiving plans—it’s a 7,000-year-old gastronomic tradition.

Researchers, including scholars from the University La Sapienza in Rome and the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, have discovered that agricultural communities living in the Near East between 7000 and 5000 BCE likely baked and consumed large loaves of bread and focaccia seasoned with animal- and plant-derived ingredients. Their findings, detailed in a November 5 study published in the journal Scientific Reports, strongly suggests that Late Neolithic people in the Fertile Crescent region enjoyed a rich—and clearly tasty—culinary tradition.

“Our study offers a vivid picture of communities using the cereals they cultivated to prepare breads and ‘focaccias’ enriched with various ingredients and consumed in groups,” Sergio Taranto of the University La Sapienza and lead writer in the study said in a Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona statement. “The use of the husking trays we identified leads us to consider that this Late Neolithic culinary tradition developed over approximately six centuries and was practiced in a wide area of the Near East.”

According to the study, previous research had already established that Late Neolithic communities in this region baked loaves made with water and flour in husking trays—large specialized clay trays with low walls, oval bases, and intentionally rough internal surfaces designed to help release baked bread. The researchers tested this with some experimental archaeology, using replicas of husking trays to bake with (what’s the point of studying prehistoric bread if you don’t get to sample some yourself?).

As a result of these experiments, the team theorizes that Late Neolithic bakers placed the trays in domed ovens with a starting temperature of 788 degrees Fahrenheit (420 degrees Celsius) for approximately two hours. The loaves each weighed about 6.6 pounds (3 kilograms), suggesting that people ate them as a group.

Animal-fat seasoned experimental focaccia as it may have been baked in the Late Neolithic in the Near East. © Sergio Taranto CC BY-ND

The study also explored whether the husking trays could have been used to bake cereal-based doughs, possibly seasoned with vegetable oil or animal fat. To figure this out, the international team analyzed organic residues in husking tray fragments dating to between 6400 and 5900 BCE from the archaeological sites of Mezraa Teleilat, Akarçay Tepe, and Tell Sabi Abyad along the Syria-Turkey border.

Their analysis suggests that Late Neolithic people used husking trays to process flour from cereals like wheat or barley, and some trays to prepare foods using animal ingredients, like animal fat. In one case, there’s even evidence of plant-based seasoning, according to the study.

Furthermore, the “degradation state of the residues suggests that, in at least two cases, the trays reached temperatures compatible with those experimentally verified for baking dough in domed ovens.” In other words, the organic residues seemingly confirm that the trays were exposed to temperatures that previous experiments had determined necessary to bake the bread in domed ovens. The researchers also identified evidence of use-wear (traces left by using an object) in the husking trays linked to bread and seasoned focaccia residues.

Overall, the study enriches previous findings about Late Neolithic bread baking in the Near East by highlighting certain ingredients processed in husking trays that likely contributed to a more complex culinary tradition. Essentially, people living in modern-day Turkey and Syria were enjoying tasty focaccia up to 9,000 years before we started purchasing it at Eataly. That’s just 3,500 years after the end of the last Ice Age, and it confirms what Italians have always known: focaccia transcends history.