A team of archaeologists from UK, Denmark, Germany and Spain have found evidence of the use of spices in European cuisine around 5,000 BC.

The archaeologists using microfossil analysis detected the silicate remains of garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) in carbonised food deposits from 7,000-year-old pots found at sites in Denmark and Germany.

The pots date from a period when prehistoric people transitioned from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to farming.

Garlic mustard has little nutritional value, and the pots also contained residues of fats from a range of marine and terrestrial animals, as well as starchy plant foods, suggesting the spice was used to flavor these foods.

Previously archaeologists have analyzed starches which survive well in carbonized and non-carbonized residues to test for the use of spices in prehistoric cooking.

But the new study suggests that the recovery of phytoliths – silicate deposits from plants – offers the additional possibility to identify leafy or woody seed material used as spices, not detectable using starch analysis. Phytoliths charred by cooking are more resilient to destruction.

“The traditional view is that early Neolithic and pre-Neolithic uses of plants, and the reasons for their cultivation, were primarily driven by energy requirements rather than flavor,” explained Dr Hayley Saul of the University of York, who is a lead author of a paper reporting the finding in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.

“As garlic mustard has a strong flavor but little nutritional value, and the phytoliths are found in pots with terrestrial and marine animal residues, our findings are the first direct evidence for the spicing of food in European prehistoric cuisine.”

“Our evidence suggests a much greater antiquity to the spicing of foods in this region than is evident from the macrofossil record, and challenges the view that plants were exploited by hunter-gatherers and early agriculturalists solely for energy requirements, rather than taste,” Dr Saul said.

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Bibliographic information: Saul H et al. 2013. Phytoliths in Pottery Reveal the Use of Spice in European Prehistoric Cuisine. PLoS ONE 8 (8): e70583; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0070583