> But why would agriculture have developed, if people were't cooking the stuff?
This was my intuition as well. And IIRC, wheat was naturally plentiful in at least some parts of the fertile crescent, such that people could bake bread without needing to farm it. In such places, heavy grinding stones and other artifacts were found which suggested that people had settled (they were far too heavy to be picked up and moved from place to place) because the region was so abundant.
This was my intuition as well. And IIRC, wheat was naturally plentiful in at least some parts of the fertile crescent, such that people could bake bread without needing to farm it. In such places, heavy grinding stones and other artifacts were found which suggested that people had settled (they were far too heavy to be picked up and moved from place to place) because the region was so abundant.