Thousands of years ago, if not earlier, ancient Europeans in coastal areas ate algae and aquatic plants in their diet. Analysis of tartar or tartar from the teeth of dozens of human remains shows signs of consumption of marine and freshwater vegetables from Lithuania in the north to southeastern Spain from 8,000 years ago until at least the Middle Ages. For reasons that the authors of the work can only guess, seaweed was abandoned and, until the recent trend of Japanese food, was left for animals or in times of famine.
Teeth are the body remains that best withstand the passage of time in the fossil record. There are human species that have been discovered because of certain teeth and little else. At the end of preservation are organic materials, such as food. Until not long ago, the study of the past was the study of objects that endure because of their hardness, such as tools and weapons made of stone and bone. But without organic materials, without the fabrics they wore or shod, and without what they ate, key aspects of human prehistory are obscured. Knowing their food, for example, would help us understand what they hunted, what they grew, what they traded, or why they fought. Hence, archaeologists resorted to teeth to extract all their information. In recent years, proteins from 1.7 million years ago or DNA from 2 million years ago have been extracted from some of them. Why not also study lime? Dental tartar is nothing more than bacterial plaque that mineralizes. But by doing so, in the process of calcification, it causes bacteria and what they eat to persist for years, centuries, or millennia.
This was achieved by a group of archaeologists and anthropologists. With the help of molecular biologists, they were able to analyze the tars of 74 individuals from thirty archaeological sites across Europe. In half, they found identifiable food residue (in the form of chemical biomarkers). As stated in the scientific journal Nature CommunicationsThey found traces of animal fat, carbohydrates, unmistakable evidence of cooked food, and in one case, propolis, a resinous substance made by bees. But they found something else. In 26 samples, they found signs of algae and aquatic or riverside plants, such as so-called sea cabbage, a food that the Roman historian Pliny the Elder had already collected in his writings.
Professor of Prehistoric Archeology at the University of Glasgow (UK) Karen HardyThe study’s first author says that at the sites they sampled, “algae were widely present, particularly in… [los yacimientos] near the coast, while freshwater plants were consumed inland. Inside is the oldest specimen. At a site in present-day Lithuania, 100 kilometers from any sea, they identified in lime one of the excavated the presence of a plant from the Nymphaceae family, such as water lilies or water lilies. Their teeth date back to about 8,400 years ago, in the middle of the Mesolithic Age. The next trace is the presence of algae (which they could not identify) on the teeth of a woman between 35 and 40 years old found at the burial site of Casa Corona (Alicante), who probably lived near the present-day city of Villena in Alicante. Between 7800 and 8000 years ago. Previous works have already been established Consumption of mollusks. They likely consumed fish as well, but their bones have not stood the test of time well and isotope studies have been unable to distinguish a marine origin. Now, a study of dental calculus is adding algae to the diet of people on the Mediterranean coast.
“The biomolecular samples in this study predate historical evidence from the Far East by more than 3,000 years,” highlights Stephen Buckley, an archaeologist at the University of York (UK) and also co-author of Hardy’s work. Seaweed may have been eaten earlier in Europe than in Asia. In an email, Buckley points out that chemical analysis of lime “has the potential to detect a wide variety of foods, and although it may not provide a complete picture of an individual’s diet, because some foods are more susceptible to decomposition than others, it is still useful.” It can provide important information about ancient diets that can inform us about ancient trade networks, the availability of certain products in ancient times, and even religious and political identity, since leaders have always used foods as status symbols.
The researcher from the Department of Prehistory, Archeology and Ancient History of the University of Valencia, Domingo Salazar, investigated in detail the diet of the inhabitants of Casa Corona and other inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula. Regarding the consumption of molluscs, he warns, “It is not clear whether they do so as food or as a decorative item.” Salazar appreciates the use of lime analysis in the new work “since it is a technique that detects compounds that cannot be detected by others, such as isotopes.” The problem is qualitative and he explains it: “With the isotope study, if someone eats fish 10 times a year, this will not be reflected in the person’s collagen, a technique that requires regular and continuous consumption. But if someone puts algae in their mouth, it can get stuck in the bacterial plaque, even if they don’t want to eat it.
If we pay attention to the percentage of positive samples in this research, which is 70%, the consumption of aquatic vegetables was very high among Europeans in the past. Hardy recalls that this only applied to the sites they studied, almost all of which were located on or near the coast. There are many other places excavated inland where the lime of their human remains has not been studied. But as Juan Francisco Gebaja, who researches the sociology of past societies at CSIC’s Milla y Fontanales Humanities Research Institute, recalls, “those Mesolithic are the last hunter-gatherer societies.” “In the Iberian Peninsula and throughout the Atlantic region, these groups settle and live close to the coast, because they have a lot of resources available,” adds Gibaja, who is not connected to Hardy’s work. “There is a huge consumption of marine resources.”
In February this year, scientist Maria Fontanales from the University of York published another paper explaining this People of the Iberian Mediterranean coast were already consuming marine products, especially fish and shellfish, 9,500 years ago.. Foods of marine origin were very important to Paleolithic and Mesolithic peoples, “who depended on hunting and gathering,” Fontanals recalls. The problem is that until not long ago, available technologies did not allow them to be discovered. “Until now, only isotopic techniques have allowed us to see the nutritional basis of individuals. If marine consumption was less than 20% of the diet, we were not allowed to see this consumption,” the researcher explains. But biomolecular advances, such as those used with… Lime, began to reveal the importance of the sea in the ancient diet.
“When the Neolithic arrives, this consumption declines across Europe,” says Gebaja. The idea that Fontanals agrees with: We go from spending all day searching for resources to eat, to growing our own food resources. This is what made us move from a heterogeneous and diverse diet to a homogeneous diet that depends entirely on land resources. The authors of Working with Lime agree with this shift and also point to the Neolithic Revolution as the beginning of the end of algae consumption in Europe. However, remember that this decline has been very slow. In fact, his study includes many specimens from the Neolithic Age, the Bronze Age, the Roman Age, and even the Middle Ages. In his Natural History (77 to 79 AD), the Roman imperial agent Pliny the Elder actually sang the praises of sea cabbage, writing of it: “It will remain green and fresh even during a long voyage, if he is careful not to eat it.” To let it touch the ground from the moment it was cut.”
The introduction of agriculture “certainly had a profound impact on ancient diets, but our research suggests that the abandonment of freshwater algae and aquatic plants may not have been as complete as archaeologists and historians have suggested,” Buckley concludes. Her co-author adds: “Laver bread, made from seaweed, is still consumed in Wales.” [Reino Unido]. We can only speculate why widespread seaweed consumption has stopped. However, historical texts indicate that its value gradually decreased until it became food during famines and fodder for animals.
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