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1

marketrent OP t1_ixlo175 wrote

Ceren Kabukcu, 23 November 2022.

>My team’s analysis of the oldest charred food remains ever found show that jazzing up your dinner is a human habit dating back at least 70,000 years.

>Imagine ancient people sharing a meal. You would be forgiven for picturing people tearing into raw ingredients or maybe roasting meat over a fire as that is the stereotype.

>But our new study showed both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens had complex diets involving several steps of preparation, and took effort with seasoning and using plants with bitter and sharp flavours.

>This degree of culinary complexity has never been documented before for Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers.

> 

>We examined food remains from two late Paleolithic sites, which cover a span of nearly 60,000 years, to look at the diets of early hunter gatherers. Our evidence is based on fragments of prepared plant foods (think burnt pieces of bread, patties and porridge lumps) found in two caves.

>At both sites, we often found ground or pounded pulse seeds such as bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia), grass pea (Lathyrus spp) and wild pea (Pisum spp).

>The people who lived in these caves added the seeds to a mixture that was heated up with water during grinding, pounding or mashing of soaked seeds.

Antiquity, DOI 10.15184/aqy.2022.143

330

PelosiGalore t1_ixls37o wrote

As a foodie and amateur historian, I find this fascinating!! I enjoy making dishes that go back….oldest one was a Babylonian stew going back 4,000 years. Thank you for the post!!!

184

Flip86 t1_ixlsowx wrote

Gotta make it taste good.

1

HighOnGoofballs t1_ixlt0q5 wrote

I’m not that surprised they did this 70,000 years ago but I’d be curious as to how it changed over time since people first started cooking over fire ~800,000 years ago

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one-more-thingy t1_ixlw0ye wrote

Kinda makes sense. You don't take up a whole planet though ice ages and worse without being a funking master of your environment.

It's later then we think.

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dchallenge t1_ixlw5h1 wrote

In related news; Sriracha, found to be a 75,000 year old company.

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Paltenburg t1_ixlzps3 wrote

Isn't the big reveal that they already ate bread?

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PelosiGalore t1_ixm12b2 wrote

Always found it amazing that there are a finite number of spices, fruits and vegetables in the world. By just varying proportions, you can make the same ingredients taste completely different. I love that!

13

koebelin t1_ixm2s6n wrote

Replying to Paltenburg (#648,864)

I too am very surprised. They mashed up seeds and made a bread? I guess when your only tech is fire you eventually cook everything and find out what works.

37

jennej1289 t1_ixm4wfn wrote

I kind of feel like well naturally they did. They were gatherers. They probably found a way to smoke and preserve food to some degree as well. They were the Earth’s first survivalist. The ones who could not figure it out died.

49

TheGreat_War_Machine t1_ixm6b2l wrote

Replying to koebelin (#649,292)

Bread is such a basic item that you'd be surprised by how little you actually need to make it. Sure, you may not get a product that's like what you'd find on the store shelf, but it offers the same benefits for paleolithic peoples.

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TheGreat_War_Machine t1_ixm6tyn wrote

I noticed in the article that much of the evidence of culinary practice was found in southwest Asia. Could it be reasonably presumed, based on human migrations, that paleolithic peoples who found their way to the Americas also utilized seasoning?

4

linkdude212 t1_ixmako4 wrote

I wonder how they heated water without pots.

1

nygdan t1_ixmcvn0 wrote

This is also how you get over the millenia long "usefulness" gap between wild food and fully domesticated crops. People sometimes ask "how was agriculture useful in the stages where the food wasn't nutritious enough". They grew it for spices and seasoning.

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yoortyyo t1_ixmd7mx wrote

Many herbs have antibiotic & anti microbial properties. We are finding even animals eat certain plants that offer medicinal value. I’m saying why can’t we have been eating & utilizing herbs before cooking happend?

10

ensalys t1_ixmf01h wrote

Replying to TheGreat_War_Machine (#649,739)

Yeah, crush up the seeds of certain kinds of grasses, mix it well with some water, add some heat, and you have the simplest kind of bread. Of course, it won't be a nice fluffy (you'll need fungi farts for that) bread with a crispy crust, but it's bread.

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TheDennisQuaid t1_ixmfl1s wrote

Tens of thousands of years old and still more flavor than British food.

5

LivermoreP1 t1_ixmhtqn wrote

Salt Bae dates back 70,000 years

1

TotalWarspammer t1_ixmjvy0 wrote

Replying to kocf1945 (#651,351)

I read that in the end humans as we know them now were just more resourceful and more competitive and Neanderthal numbers slowly dwindled to unsustainable pockets of populations... although of course they did mate with us and pass on some DNA!

14

nikstick22 t1_ixmm28f wrote

So, this study adds to the existing body of work by noting that the bitter alkaloids in the shells of the cooked seeds were soaked and/or boiled rather than deshelled completely. The authors suggest that deshelling would be easier and more efficient at removing the bitter and astringent compounds and conclude that this indicates that the ancient people preparing this food intentionally used the less effective method in order to retain the bitter flavor.

The title is not referring to any additional seasoning in this body of work, only that the bitter flavors in the food fragments studied were not completely removed.

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elmo_knows t1_ixmmsa3 wrote

The real question is if it tastes good

1

surle t1_ixmnabx wrote

Replying to TotalWarspammer (#651,415)

As far as I understand (not an expert) the "out competed by homo sapiens" theory is just the most likely logical explanation everyone goes along with for the convenience of having a sensible premise and is not something that has been strongly supported with evidence. It's quite possible some fascinating discovery just around the corner of another site like this one could provide the solid bit of evidence needed to properly strengthen that theory, or turn it on its head. All the more reason to support organisations that fund such research, and probably another good reason to oppose the idea of dropping a lot of bombs everywhere.

10

TotalWarspammer t1_ixmv111 wrote

Replying to surle (#651,825)

Of course it's not "just convenience" that scientists think that. What else would you think would cause the species to go completely extinct? There is no evidence that they was a disease specific to Neanderthals or that they were hunted by other men. The evidence suggests the dwindled gradually into smaller groups and then finally faded away. They were not as adaptable or as resourceful as we were.

−4

Entity-2019 t1_ixmwk79 wrote

Replying to kocf1945 (#651,351)

Given our known history, I am leaning toward systematic continental genocide as a probable explanation. Maybe the Neanderthals "worshiped the wrong god", or even worse, "worshipped the same god, the wrong way".

4

SilverJaw47 t1_ixmy47b wrote

My god. Paleo humans had more refined pallets than British people.

1

MagicSPA t1_ixmyi00 wrote

I'd love to see that scenario captured in a Gary Larson cartoon.

"Ugg! What doing with tarragon?! It clearly rosemary that go with unidentified rodent!"

3

bluejays-beak1281 t1_ixmzu4e wrote

Well of course, nobody but the modern English like unseasoned food.

0

Papancasudani t1_ixn1565 wrote

Seems like the premise for a Far Side cartoon:

Hey Thag. What go good with mammoth flank?

4

standardtrickyness1 t1_ixn5b4e wrote

Next you'll be telling me primitive man first ignited mastodon flatulence to heat his cave.

1

pt101389 t1_ixnawl8 wrote

They are obviously not talking about the white hunters. (I'm white it's a harmless stereotype joke)

2

vferrero14 t1_ixnmbdl wrote

Probably more spices then my Caucasian mother uses on chicken

1

Fuzzy_Logic_4_Life t1_ixnvhw6 wrote

My family’s recipe of secret herbs and spices are 70,000 years old.

Can’t top that can you! Oh wait, you can? Oh, we’re related awesome!

1

ILovePornAndDrugs t1_ixofqqc wrote

damn wonder what palaeolithic cooking tasted like when thanksgiving rolled round

1

QueenRooibos t1_ixogiyp wrote

Replying to marketrent (#647,555)

How do we know it was for seasoning? Couldn't the plants/herbs/minerals etc. have been used for medicinal purposes such as preventing/lessening food poisoning or indigestion? Bitter herbs are especially useful for this according to old herbalist handbooks.

7

mrsbundleby t1_ixoi04o wrote

Hunter gatherers were better cooks than my mother in law

3

frickin-bats- t1_ixol64l wrote

Replying to kocf1945 (#651,351)

Neanderthals were adapted to the cold and for hunting big game, they thrived during the last ice age. As the climate warmed and a lot of big game died out, their physical traits and way of life weren’t as advantageous/sustainable, and for whatever reason they were unable to adapt to keep up with the environmental changes. Competition with early modern humans probably didn’t help, and as some other people mentioned they interbred with early modern humans, so they may have just been gradually absorbed into the human population

3

KeybladeMasterAqua t1_ixowbjg wrote

They weren’t total savages. They probably knew what they liked to eat.

1

Doctor_Box t1_ixowpx6 wrote

The paleo anti plant crowd is in shambles.

1

Raichu7 t1_ixpvy57 wrote

Replying to marketrent (#647,555)

The assumption that people 70,000 years ago would only eat a single type of food at a meal seems rather crazy to me. Where were they getting enough of it to feed the whole tribe? The idea that they gathered whatever meat and plants they could find and then cooked them all together makes a lot more sense.

3

CallFromMargin t1_ixq7c3k wrote

Replying to T_ja (#652,877)

I mean yeah, their DNA is in all human population, except for sub-saharan Africa. There definitely was interbreeding. Devisovians are another interesting sub-species, and we have found remains of individual with neanderthal and devisovian parents.

1

CallFromMargin t1_ixq8b5t wrote

Replying to Entity-2019 (#652,906)

Yeah, no. For starters, both human and neanderthal population dropped significantly at around 70 000ish years ago, probably due to some kind of cataclysmic event (a supervulcano eruption was long suspected but it might not have been the cause). Human population recovered, neanderthal population didn't.

But even if it did, would you be able to tell neanderthal apart from modern humans?

EDIT: also the last known neanderthal population seem to have died out during time of periodic climate change that would have fucked with their food supply.

2

dumnezero t1_iy03uy2 wrote

Replying to Paltenburg (#663,950)

Domestication of grains required existing use and knowledge of grains. You can't assume that there were government funded research projects on plant breeding to direct a long-term plan for making grains bigger and better.

1