APA 7: TWs Editor & ChatGPT. (2023, October 19). Research Uncovers Ancient European Diets Featuring Seaweed and Freshwater Plants. PerEXP Teamworks. [Article Link]
While seaweed enjoys a modern reputation as a superfood, recognized for its health advantages and eco-friendliness, it’s becoming increasingly evident that our forebears in Europe were well ahead of the curve. These ancient Europeans had been incorporating this nutrient-rich plant into their diets for millennia.
Accounts from the past!
Published in Nature Communications, the study uncovers that although aquatic resources were utilized, the archaeological records of seaweed are infrequent, and when found, they are typically interpreted in the context of non-edible purposes, such as fuel, food packaging, or fertilizers.
Historical records document regulations regarding seaweed collection dating back to the 10th Century in Iceland, Brittany, and Ireland. Additionally, sea kale, noted by Pliny, served as a seafarer’s antidote to scurvy.
In the 18th Century, seaweed was regarded as a source of sustenance during famines. While seaweed and freshwater aquatic plants maintain their economic significance in some Asian regions, their consumption remains minimal in Europe, despite their nutritional and medicinal value.
The research team, spearheaded by archaeologists from the universities of Glasgow and York, analyzed biomarkers extracted from dental calculus of 74 individuals spanning 28 archaeological sites across Europe. This investigation unveiled “Clear proof of the extensive consumption of seaweed and submerged aquatic as well as freshwater plants.”
Biomolecular evidence
In the samples where biomolecular evidence remained intact, researchers identified the consumption of a range of seaweeds including red, green, and brown varieties, along with freshwater aquatic plants. Notably, one sample from Orkney contained evidence of Brassica consumption, likely sea kale.
Out of the roughly 10,000 seaweed species worldwide, a mere 145 are presently part of human diets, with a primary focus on consumption in Asian regions.
Today, seaweed and freshwater aquatic plants are virtually absent from traditional, western diets and their marginalisation as they gradually changed from food to famine resources and animal fodder, probably occurred over a long period of time, as has also been detected elsewhere with some plants.
Our study also highlights the potential for rediscovery of alternative, local, sustainable food resources that may contribute to addressing the negative health and environmental effects of over-dependence on a small number of mass-produced agricultural products that is a dominant feature of much of today’s western diet, and indeed the global long-distance food supply more generally.
It is very exciting to be able to show definitively that seaweeds and other local freshwater plants were eaten across a long period in our European past.
Karen Hardy
Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Glasgow
Principal Investigator of the Powerful Plants project
Regarding the Far East
The biomolecular evidence in this study is over three thousand years earlier than historical evidence in the Far East.
Not only does this new evidence show that seaweed was being consumed in Europe during the Mesolithic Period around 8,000 years ago when marine resources were known to have been exploited, but that it continued into the Neolithic when it is usually assumed that the introduction of farming led to the abandonment of marine dietary resources.
This strongly suggests that the nutritional benefits of seaweed were sufficiently well understood by these ancient populations that they maintained their dietary link with the sea.
Stephen Buckley
Co author on the paper
The Department of Archaeology at the University of York
Resources
- NEWSPAPER University of York. (2023, October 17). Study reveals our European ancestors ate seaweed and freshwater plants. University of York. [University of York]
- JOURNAL Buckley, S., Hardy, K., Hallgren, F., Kubiak-Martens, L., Miliauskienė, Ž., Sheridan, A., Sobkowiak‐Tabaka, I., & De Galdàcano, M. E. S. (2023). Human consumption of seaweed and freshwater aquatic plants in ancient Europe. Nature Communications, 14(1). [Nature Communications]
