This is a case of having the chicken before the egg. The oldest grain storage facilities were apparently built more than a thousand years before people began domesticating grain for food.
The oldest known domesticated cereal grains are believed to be about 10,500 years old. But the four granaries discovered in the settlement of Dhra in what is now Jordan apparently date to about 11,300 years ago. They were found in a tiny village of about 10 buildings, some of which were houses while others were apparently used to process and store foods.
The buildings themselves were oval-shaped, about 9 feet in diameter and 9 feet high. The walls were constructed of stone and mud bricks, with mud floors. The best preserved granary featured notched stones, about 1 to 1½ feet high which may have supported wooden beams which were probably covered with plants and mud to create a raised floor.
The floor protected the food from rodents and would have allowed air to circulate through the stored grains. Traces of wild barley were found in one of the buildings.
Apparently these granaries were shared by all the villagers at the time. It was only later that storage facilities were separated and maintained by individual families in their own homes.
These granaries indicate that the members of this little community actually worked together to gather and store food. It also means that this little community lived at least a semi-settled life style at a time when most people were believed to have moved around as hunter-gatherers taking advantage of game and wild foods. At least a few small bands were already beginning to take advantage of some of the benefits of sedentary society such as shared labor.
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