For millennia, if not before, ancient Europeans in coastal areas had algae and aquatic plants in their diet. Analysis of dental calculus or tartar from the teeth of dozens of human remains shows signs of the consumption of marine and freshwater vegetables from Lithuania, in the north, to southeastern Spain from 8,000 years ago and at least until 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 times of famine.
Teeth are the remains of the body that best withstand the passage of time in the fossil record. There are human species that have been discovered because of some teeth and little else. At the conservation end are organic materials, such as food. Until not long ago, the study of the past was that of things that, because they were hard, endured, such as tools and weapons made of stone and bone. But without the organic, without the fabrics with which they dressed or shod, without what they ate, key aspects of human prehistory are obscured. Knowing about their food, for example, would help us understand what they hunted, what they grew, what they traded with, or why they fought. Hence, archaeologists turned to the teeth to extract all the information they had. In recent years, proteins from 1.7 million years ago or DNA from two million years ago have been recovered from some of them. Why not also study tartar? Dental calculus is nothing more than bacterial plaque that mineralizes. But by doing so, in a calcification process, it causes the bacteria and what they were eating to last for years, centuries or millennia.
A group of archaeologists and anthropologists have verified this. With the help of molecular biologists, they have been able to analyze the tartar of 74 individuals from thirty archaeological sites throughout Europe. In half they found identifiable food remains (in the form of chemical biomarkers). As reported in the scientific journal Nature Communications, they found residues of animal fats, carbohydrates, unequivocal evidence of cooked food and, in one case, propolis, a resin made by bees. But they found something else. In 26 of the samples they found signs of algae and aquatic or riverside plants, such as the so-called sea cabbage, a food already collected by the Roman historian Pliny the Elder in his sample.
Professor of prehistoric archeology at the University of Glasgow (United Kingdom) Karen Hardyfirst author of the study, says that in the sites they sampled, “algae were widely present, particularly in [los yacimientos] close to the coast, while freshwater plants were consumed inland.” From inland it is the oldest sample. In a site in present-day Lithuania and 100 kilometers from any sea, they identified in the tartar of one of those excavated the presence of a plant from the nymphaceae family, the same as that of water lilies or water lilies. Their teeth date back to about 8,400 years, in the middle of the Mesolithic. The next trace is of algae (they have not been able to identify them) on the teeth of a woman between 35 and 40 years old found in the Casa Corona burial site (Alicante), who must have lived near the current Alicante city of Villena between 7,800 and 8,000 years. Previous works had already identified consumption of mollusks. It is likely that they also consumed fish, but their bones do not stand the test of time well and isotope studies were unable to differentiate the marine origin. Now, the study of dental tartar adds algae to the diet of the inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast.
Stephen Buckley, an archaeologist at the University of York (United Kingdom) and also co-author of Hardy’s work, highlights that “the biomolecular samples in this study predate historical evidence from the Far East by more than 3,000 years.” Perhaps seaweed was eaten earlier in Europe than in Asia. In an email, Buckley notes that chemical analysis of tartar “has the potential to reveal 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 degradation than others , can still offer important information about ancient diets that can inform us of ancient trade networks, the availability of some 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, has investigated in detail the diet of the inhabitants of Casa Corona and others of the Iberian Peninsula. Regarding the consumption of mollusks, he warns that “it is not clear if they did it as food or as a decorative element.” Salazar values the use of tartar 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 study of isotopes, if someone eats fish 10 times a year, that will not be reflected in the person’s collagen, it is a technique that requires regular and continued consumption.” . But if someone puts an algae in their mouth, it can get trapped in the bacterial plaque, even if they were not going to eat it.”
If we pay attention to the proportion of positive samples in this research, 70%, the consumption of aquatic vegetables was very high among Europeans in the past. Hardy remembers that this applies only to the sites they have studied, almost all of them located on or near the coast. There are many other places excavated in the interior where they have not studied the tartar of their human remains. But, as Juan Francisco Gibaja, who researches the sociology of past communities at the Milá y Fontanals Humanities Research Institution of the CSIC, recalls, “those of the Mesolithic are the last hunter-gatherer societies.” Gibaja, not related to Hardy’s work, adds: “In the Iberian Peninsula and throughout the Atlantic area, these groups settle, live, near the coast, because they have many resources available. And there is a lot of consumption of marine resources.”
In February of this year, University of York scientist María Fontanals published another research demonstrating that The inhabitants of the Iberian Mediterranean coast already consumed sea products, particularly fish and shellfish, 9,500 years ago. Fontanals recalls that foods of marine origin were very important for the Paleolithic and Mesolithic people, “who were hunter-gatherers.” The problem is that until not long ago, the available technologies did not allow it to be detected. “Until now, isotopic techniques only allowed us to see the dietary basis of individuals. If the consumption of marine resources was less than the equivalent of 20% in the diet, we were not allowed to see this consumption, explains the researcher. But biomolecular advances, such as those used with tartar, are beginning to reveal the importance of the sea in the paleo diet.
“When the Neolithic arrives, this consumption decreases throughout Europe,” says Gibaja. Idea that Fontanals agrees with: We go from spending all day looking for resources to eat, to planting our food resources. This made us go from a heterogeneous and varied diet to a homogeneous diet based entirely on terrestrial resources.” The authors of the work with tartar agree with the transition and also point to the Neolithic revolution as the beginning of the end of algae consumption in Europe. However, remember, this decline was very slow. In fact, his study includes many samples from the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, the Roman era and even the Middle Ages. In his Natural History (77 to 79 AD), the Roman imperial procurator Pliny the Elder already sang the praises of sea cabbage, of which he writes: “It will remain green and fresh even during a long journey, if it is be careful not to let it touch the ground from the moment it is cut.”
Buckley concludes that the introduction of agriculture “certainly must have had a profound impact on ancient diets, but our research suggests that perhaps the abandonment of algae and freshwater aquatic plants was not as complete as archaeologists and historians have suggested.” ”. Her study partner adds: “Laver bread, which is made from seaweed, is still consumed in Wales.” [Reino Unido]. We can only speculate as to why seaweed stopped being more widely consumed. However, historical texts suggest that they were gradually devalued until they became food during famines and fodder for animals.
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