The Austrian Archaeological Institute has recently been carrying out excavations on a hill fort called Stillfried an der March, located at the crossroads of two major trade routes and which was a settlement of the Late Urnfield period, particularly the period between 1,000 and 900 BCE.
     Due to its strategic position is was chosen as a good grain storage depot but there was also quite a lot of evidence of commercial activity and trade, including textile and metal products. The find which is causing the excitement is that of some dried and charred cereal rings, similar in shape but larger than the modern day commercial breakfast cereal known as 'Cheerios'. These were found in a silo pit alongside clay ring fragments.
     Andreas Heiss, the lead author of the findings, is quoted as saying "Although the rings were food items the overall unusual final assemblage [in the silo pit] suggests that there may have been some further symbolic meaning to them". He went on to add "... the similarity in shape between the functional clay rings and the dough rings suggest that maybe the latter had been imitations of the clay loom weights".

Edited from Smithsonian.com (12 June 2019)