Exotic Asian spices such as turmeric and fruits such as banana had reached the Mediterranean Sea more than 3000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought. A team of researchers working with archaeologist Philipp Stockhammer at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich (LMU) has shown that long-distance trade in food was already in the Bronze Age, linking distant associations.
Market in the city of Megiddo in the Levant 3700 years ago: Market traders are slowing down not only wheat, oats or dates, which grow throughout the region, but also carafes of sesame oil and bowls of bright yellow spice that have recently appeared among their products. This is how Philipp Stockhammer thinks of the Bronze Age market turmoil in the eastern Mediterranean. Working with an international team to study food scraps in tooth tartar, an LMU archaeologist has found evidence that people in the Levant were already eating turmeric, bananas and even soy in the Bronze Ages and Early Iron. “So foreign spices, fruits and oils from Asia had reached the Mediterranean several centuries, in some cases even thousands of years, earlier than previously thought,” Stockhammer said. “This is the earliest direct evidence to date of turmeric, banana and soy outside of South and East Asia.” It is also direct evidence that there was already a long distance trade in foreign fruits, spices and oils, as early as the second millennium BCE, believed to have linked South Asia and the Levant through Mesopotamia. or Egypt. While much trade across these regions has been quickly documented later, finding the roots of this nascent universe has been a strong problem. The findings of this study confirm that long-distance trade in culinary products has connected the distant societies since at least the Bronze Age. It seems that people were very interested in exotic foods from an early age.
For their analyzes, the Stockhammer international team surveyed 16 people from the Megiddo and Tel Erani excavations, located in Israel today. The area in southern Levant served as an important bridge between the Mediterranean Sea, Asia and Egypt in the 2nd millennium BCE. The aim of the research was to study the cases of Bronze Age Levantine populations by analyzing traces of food residues, including old plant proteins and microfossils, which have been preserved. in human dental calculus over thousands of years.
The human mouth is full of bacteria, which constantly squeeze and form calculus. Tiny particles get stuck and preserved in the growing calculus, and it is the remnants of minutes that are now available for scientific research thanks to advanced methods. For the purposes of their analysis, the researchers took samples from different people at the Bronze Age site in Megiddo and the Early Iron Age site in Tel Erani. They examined the food proteins and the remains of plants preserved in the calculus on their teeth. “This allows us to find out what a person ate,” said Stockhammer. “Anyone who doesn’t practice good dental hygiene will still tell archaeologists what they’ve been eating for thousands of years from now on!”
Palaeoproteomics is the name of this new and growing field of research. The method could evolve into a standard approach in archeology, or so the researchers hope. “Our high-resolution study of ancient proteins and plant remains from human dental calculus is the first of its kind to study the affairs of the ancient Middle East,” says Christina Warinner, molecular archaeologist at Harvard University and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and co-author of the article. “Our research demonstrates the great potential of these methods to find food that leaves very few archaeological finds. Dental calculus is such a valuable source of information about the lives of older people.”
“Our approach is breaking new scientific ground,” explains LMU biochemist and lead author Ashley Scott, which is because identifying individual protein residues is no small task. for specific food products. Beyond recognizing the hard work, the protein itself must live for thousands of years. “Interestingly, we find that proteins appear to be allergy-related. the most stable in human calculus, “says Scott, a finding she believes may be due to the known thermostability of many allergens. For example, the researchers were able to detect wheat through gluten proteins. wheat, says Stockhammer.The team was then able to independently determine that wheat used a type of plant microfossil called phytoliths.Phytoliths were also used for mullet and palm dates are celebrated in the Levant during the Bronze and Iron Ages, but phytoliths are not abundant or even present in many foods, which is why the new protein products are so innovative – yes paleoproteomics allows identifying food on very few other traces left, such as sesame. Sesame proteins have been identified in dental calculus from both Megiddo and Tel Erani. “This suggests that sesame became a staple food in the Levant before the 2nd millennium BCE,” says Stockhammer.
Two additional protein products are particularly remarkable, explains Stockhammer. In the dental calculus of one person from Megiddo, turmeric and soy proteins were detected, and in another Tel Erani banana proteins were identified. All three foods apparently reached the Levant through South Asia. Bananas first lived in southeast Asia, where they were used from the 5th millennium BCE, and reached West Africa 4000 years later, but little is known about their trade or use. “Our analyzes therefore provide vital information on the worldwide distribution of the banana. There was no previous archaeological or written evidence of such early distribution into the Mediterranean region. , “says Stockhammer, although the sudden appearance of a banana in West Africa is small. centuries later it has been said that such a trade could take place. “I find it amazing that food has been traded over such long distances at such an early stage in history.”
Stockhammer notes that they cannot deny the possibility, in fact, that one of the people spent part of their life in South Asia and ate the food together. suitable just while they were there. Even if the extent to which spices, oils and fruits were imported is not yet known, there are many indications that trade took place, as there is also other evidence of foreign spices in East Mediterranean – Pharaoh Ramses II buried peppercorns from India in 1213 BCE. They were found in his nose.
The results of the study were published in the journal PNAS. The work is part of the Stockhammer project “FoodTransforms – Transformations of Food in the Mediterranean Late Age Mediterranean,” which is funded by the Council of Europe. The international team that conducted the study includes scientists from LMU Munich, Harvard University and the Max Planck Institute for Human History Science in Jena. The fundamental question behind his project – and thus the starting point of the current study – was to clarify whether the early globalization of trade networks in the Bronze Age also related to food. “In fact, we can now capture the impact of globalization during the 2nd millennium BCE on Eastern Mediterranean food,” says Stockhammer. “Mediterranean food was marked by early intercultural exchange.”
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