Cienciaes.com: What did they cook in the stone age? We spoke with Miriam Cubas

2020-05-09 18:18:38

The question may be surprising, but that is what an international team of scientists has tried to find out, led by Miriam Cubas, a researcher at the University of Oviedo and our guest today on Talking to Scientists. Researchers have studied the remains of food cooked in ceramic vessels used by European settlers between 7,500 and 5,500 years ago to find out what their favorite foods were.

In those distant times a great social change took place in western and northern Europe. The settlers, until then dedicated to hunting and gathering wild fruits, began to change their way of life devoting themselves to activities related to agriculture and livestock. This change favored the appearance of stable settlements where, thanks to the development of ceramics, its inhabitants began to use containers that, placed on the fire, allowed food to be cooked. These containers were used many times and their clay was impregnated with the molecules of their stews.

Researchers have managed to gather remains of pottery that had been used for cooking in 24 different archaeological sites scattered along the European Atlantic coast, from Portugal to the Baltic coasts. Using molecular and isotopic analysis techniques, they have been able to extract substances that had been impregnated in the ceramics and discover some of the food cooked in prehistoric pots and pots.

There were notable differences between the different populations, while the towns of the Iberian Peninsula consumed preferentially sheep and goat meat, in the north of France, the British Isles and Denmark cattle were the most abundant. The residues left by the meat of animals, plants, fish and resins have made it possible to determine how culinary customs varied from one end of the European coast to the other. The use of containers to contain dairy products, whose presence is much more pronounced in northern European towns, is surprising. These results could provide information on the evolution of lactose tolerance in European adults.

Lactose, a predominant sugar in milk, is known to be well digested by mammals during the lactation period, but this ability disappears as adults. In humans, genetic mutations have allowed most people to be lactose tolerant also in adulthood, allowing us to digest dairy products without problems, however, many people continue to be lactose intolerant. . It is known that the genetic mutations that allow lactose tolerance are more abundant in the northern regions of Europe than in the southern populations.

Another interesting result of the study refers to the consumption of products of marine origin. Surprisingly, the ceramic remains found in the towns of the Iberian Peninsula do not contain remains indicating their use for cooking fish or shellfish, despite being located near the sea. On the other hand, these remains do appear in the vessels used in the regions on the shores of the Baltic.

Researchers from the University of York, the University of Oviedo, the Aranzadi Science Society, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​the Max Planck Institute, the University of Cantabria, INRAPthe Regional Archeology Service of Normandy, the Archeology Service of the Department of Calvados, the University of Lisbon, UNIARQthe University of Santiago de Compostela, the University of Rennes, the Museum of Prehistory and Archeology of Cantabria, the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution, the Rovira i Virgili University, the Archaeological Museum of São Miguel de Odrinhas and the University of Barcelona

We invite you to listen to Miriam Cubas, doctor in Prehistory. Researcher at the University of Oviedo and at the University of York.

Reference:

Cubas et al. 2020. Latitudinal gradient in dairy production with the introduction of farming in Atlantic Europe. Nature Communications. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-15907-4

Figure 1. Vase « La Hoguette » dated at the end of the 6th millennium BC. C. at the Alizay site (image: H. Paitier, INRAP).

Figure 2. Early Neolithic ceramics from the Lannion site (Côte d’Armor) (image: H. Paitier, INRAP).

Cover: Figure 3. Ceramics from the Verson site (Calvados) (image Conseil départemental du Calvados ou CD14) in Germain-vallée et al., 2015)