Oldest fermented bread

The oldest fermented (or leavened) bread (i.e., bread that uses a rising agent such as yeast) has been dated to 6600 BCE and was discovered by archaeologists at the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük in Konya Province, Türkiye, as reported in March 2024.

The spongy mass, about the size of a hand, was unearthed in an area of the site known as "Mekan 66" in a mudbrick building complex featuring what appears to be an oven, surrounded by remnants of raw ingredients such as wheat, barley and pea seeds. The dig and later analysis of the sample using scanning electron microscope imaging to reveal air bubbles and traces of starch was conducted by archaeologists from Necmettin Erbakan University (Türkiye).

Prior to this, the oldest-known fermented bread dated to c. 1500 BCE in ancient Egypt.

Even older still were 14,400-year-old crumbs found in the Black Desert of Jordan by the University of Copenhagen Archaeological Research Group (Denmark) and discussed in the journal PNAS on 16 July 2018. However, these came from unleavened bread (i.e., flatbread) comprising a dough made from flour of wild wheat/barley and dried roots mixed with water then cooked on hot stones around a fire.