25 August, 2013

Share this story: Follow us: Follow @messagetoeagle MessageToEagle.com - Our early ancestors had a taste for spicy food, new research led by the University of York has revealed. Archaeologists at York, working with colleagues in Denmark, Germany and Spain, have found evidence of the use of spices in cuisine at the transition to agriculture. The researchers discovered traces of garlic mustard along with animal and fish residues on the charred remains of pottery dating back nearly 7,000 years.





The new research 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 flavour," lead researcher Dr Hayley Saul, of the BioArCH research centre at at the University of York, said.

As garlic mustard has a strong flavour 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."





Early contexts from which spices have been recovered, with photomicrographs of globular sinuate phytoliths recovered from the pottery



"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."

Paper.



MessageToEagle.com

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