Baking bread as it was 3,000 years ago

The people who lived in Europe 3,000 years ago were farmers. They sowed grain, grew vegetables, gathered fruit and kept animals. They built their houses from materials found in nature. This period is known as the Bronze Age.

In the municipality of Uelsen in the County of Bentheim, Lower Saxony, a house from this period has been reconstructed. After remains of a Bronze Age burial ground were found here, a Bronze Age farmstead with several buildings was built nearby.

The main house is supported by wooden posts, and its walls are made of branches and clay. The roof is thatched with reeds. A fire can be lit inside, with the smoke escaping through openings in the gable. Back then, people and animals lived under the same roof. Houses like these did not smell very good, were quite draughty and bitterly cold in winter.

People lived on what they found in nature and could produce using simple methods. They spent most of the day making sure they had enough to eat. 

There were no tractors or machines for working the fields yet. The tools were made of wood, stone or bronze. People grew grain. Spelt, emmer and einkorn were common crops; they are related to modern wheat. Millet was also sown and harvested. Farmers used simple hoes to make furrows in the soil and place seeds in them. Yields were low and crops were vulnerable to frost and storms. Famines occurred again and again.

In autumn, people gathered the ears of grain and threshed out the kernels. They stored their supplies in clay vessels. Bronze Age people also gathered fruit, herbs, mushrooms and bird eggs. They kept cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and horses.

They ate its meat, roasted over an open fire. They drank milk from cows and goats, or simply water from the nearest stream. They knew honey and salt, and a drink containing alcohol. It is called mead.

Bread was also baked. The open fire inside the houses was not sufficient for this, so an oven was built outside.

It was built from loam, a building material that has been used for thousands of years. Loam consists of sand, clay, and a material called silt. It can withstand high temperatures and store heat for a long time.

A building made of clay must be protected from moisture. That is why the bread ovens 3,000 years ago were covered by a roof made of wood and turf. The reconstruction in Uelsen was built the same way.

In the Bronze Age, people could certainly crush grain into a mash. But to bake bread from it, they had to grind it into flour.

At that time, grain was ground using millstones. The grain was placed in a shallow stone with a small hollow, then ground with a rubbing stone.

During grinding, some of the stone was also chipped or scraped away. Grinding was very laborious, and it took a long time to produce enough flour to bake bread.

To make bread, flour was mixed with water. A little salt, herbs and yeast were added too. The dough was kneaded for a long time.

After kneading, the dough had to rest for a while. This is still the case today. The yeast makes the dough expand. It becomes lighter, small bubbles form inside, and the bread tastes much better.

You can also shape the dough or decorate it. The same was true in the Bronze Age. Of course, the oven then had to be heated. Dry wood was used for this. The inside of the clay oven reached around 400° Celsius.

Once the oven had heated up enough, all the embers were removed. The inside was now hot enough, and the clay walls retained the heat.

The loaves were then slid into the oven and placed directly on its floor. The oven door was then sealed with clay to keep the heat in. The bread had to bake for about 40 to 50 minutes.

Once the bread was baked, it was taken out of the oven with a bread peel. It was still very warm and smelled wonderful. Bread can be kept for several days, so even people in the Bronze Age could build up a small supply.

Bread was easy to carry. That meant people could always take food with them, for example on hikes, while working in the fields or when hunting. That is why bread is still an important food today.