World’s first bakers? - ABC Education (2024)

SUBJECTS:Geography, History, Science, Technologies

YEARS: 5–6, 7–8, 9–10

When did humans begin grinding seeds to make flour?

Many people believe bread-making began in Egypt or Mesopotamia as long as 17,000 years ago. Archaeologists have recently found evidence that Indigenous Australians were producing flour 65,000 years ago.

Were they the world's first bakers?

Note for the audience

Sources used in this resource have words to describe Indigenous people that many people find offensive but at the time were widely used and, unfortunately, accepted. Words such as "blacks", "Aborigine" and "natives" were commonly used in colonial Australia to describe Indigenous people, but today they are considered outdated and highly offensive by many people.

Things to think about

1. 1.Why is Cuddie Springs an important place for archaeology? What has been found there?
2. 2.Why was Pascoe surprised when he learned that Aboriginal people ground flour 35,000 years ago?
3. 3.What evidence did archaeologists find in 2017 to show that Aboriginal people were the world's first bakers?

View the full Bruce Pascoe: Aboriginal Agriculture, Technology and Ingenuity collection.

Teachers

In 2014, Bruce Pascoe wrote a book called Dark Emu that challenged the belief that the First Australians were hunter-gatherers. In researching his book, Bruce examined the journals of the early explorers and found evidence of a complex civilisation that was using sophisticated technologies to live, farm and manage the land.

Acknowledgements

All videos produced by Tim Purdie and Beth Shepherd for ABC Education.

Production Date: 2019

Copyright

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