In latest years, seaweed could have gained a status for being a superfood, however new analysis suggests our European ancestors ate the nutrient-rich plant for 1000’s of years.
Archaeological proof signifies that seaweeds and different native freshwater crops have been eaten within the Mesolithic, by way of the Neolithic transition to farming and into the Early Middle Ages.
The findings counsel these crops, now hardly ever eaten in Europe, solely grew to become marginal far more not too long ago, researchers say.
The researchers hope their examine will spotlight the potential for together with extra seaweeds and different native freshwater crops in our diets as we speak – serving to Europeans to change into more healthy and extra sustainable.
Karen Hardy, professor of prehistoric archaeology on the University of Glasgow is principal investigator of the Powerful Plants mission.
She stated: “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.”
The analysis, revealed in Nature Communications, discovered that archaeological proof for seaweed is just hardly ever recorded and is often thought of when it comes to non-edible makes use of like gas, meals wrappings or fertilisers.
There are historic accounts associated to the gathering of seaweed in Iceland, Brittany and Ireland relationship to the tenth Century, whereas sea kale is talked about by Pliny as a sailor’s anti-scurvy treatment.
By the 18th century, seaweed was thought of famine meals.
Today the crops proceed to be common in elements of Asia however usually are not widespread in European diets.
Led by archaeologists from the colleges of Glasgow and York, researchers examined molecules extracted from the calcified dental plaque of 74 folks from 28 archaeological websites throughout Europe, from north Scotland to southern Spain.
The findings revealed “direct evidence for widespread consumption of seaweed and submerged aquatic and freshwater plants”.
Some of the samples revealed consumption of pink, inexperienced or brown seaweeds, or freshwater aquatic crops, with one pattern from Orkney additionally containing proof for a Brassica, almost definitely sea kale.
There are some 10,000 totally different species of seaweeds on this planet, but solely 145 species are eaten as we speak, principally in Asia.
Co-author of the paper, Dr Stephen Buckley, from the Department of Archaeology on the University of York, stated “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.”
Source: www.unbiased.co.uk