Our early ancestors were spicing up their food with garlic mustard nearly 7,000 years ago, according to new study on the surprising complexity of Stone Age cuisine.
Archaeologists at University of 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 on the charred remains of pottery dating back nearly 7,000 years. The silicate rema-ins of garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) along with animal and fish residues were discovered through microfossil analysis of carbonised food deposits from pots found at sites in Denmark and Germany. The pottery dated from the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture.
Previously scientists have analysed starches which survive well in carbonised and non-carbonised residues to test for the use of spices in prehistoric cooking.
But the new research, published in PLOS ONE, 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, researchers said.
“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.