Emmer Processing

Non-Mechanised Emmer Processing in Highland Ethiopia

Emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccum (Schrank) Thell.) (Figure 1) was a cereal integral to life in the ancient world. From its early beginnings during the mid 8th millennium BC, emmer quickly grew to dominate wheat production in the Near East, subsequently spreading to Europe, the Transcaucasus and eventually to the Indian subcontinent. Over time, emmer was eclipsed by more productive free-threshing wheats during the Near Eastern Bronze Age, early in the 4th millennium BC, and never regained its early prominence. It is an extremely rare crop today, cultivated mainly as fodder in isolated regions.

The northern highlands of Ethiopia (Figure 2) is one of the few remaining areas where emmer continues to be grown for human consumption. As such, this represents a unique opportunity for archaeologists to study the technological and social aspects of non-mechanised processing of emmer to gain insights into how farmers may have operated in the past. Our ethnoarchaeological investigations of emmer processing have focused on small-scale household production.

Figure 1. Emmer wheat
Figure 2: Ethiopian highlands
Figure 3. Interviewing.
Figure 4. Field threshing.

Interviews were completed with elders (Figure 3) and people still actively engaged in the growing of emmer for human food. All stages of production from field threshing (Figure 4), winnowing (Figure 5) and household sieving/winnowing (Figure 6) and pounding (Figure 7) have been documented.

Figure 5. Winnowing.
Figure 6. Household sieving/winnowing.
Figure 7. Pounding.
Figure 8. Mihehai technique.

Women exhibited great skill in separating several different components using a simple sieve. In the mihehai technique (Figure 8) for example, a skilful sideways and circular motion allows a woman to separate four components of a mixed crop.

Despite high processing costs, land and water shortages, and the availability of more productive wheat species, the cultivation of emmer has persisted in highland Ethiopia mainly because foods produced are highly appreciated. Women clearly bear the bulk of labour necessary in non-mechanised processing of emmer wheat. These processing techniques and the time women spend in grain cleaning activities have been passed over in much of the agronomic and ethnographic literature.

In Ethiopia women have dealt with high workloads by using shared labour groups, also known as Mutual Support Networks (MSN). Given the constraints imposed by the nature of these cereals, it is possible that shared female labour in cereal processing was a widespread phenomenon of Tigrayan village life in the recent past, and in all probability in ancient times as well.