Asian spices of aromatic herbs such as turmeric and fruits such as bananas had already reached the Mediterranean Sea more than 3,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought.
A team of researchers working with archaeologist Philipp Stockhammer at the University of Ludwig-Maximilians in Munich (LMU) has shown that even in the Bronze Age, the long-distance food trade already linked distant societies.
Working with an international team to analyze food residues in tooth tartar, LMU archaeologist found evidence that people in the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean) were already consuming turmeric, bananas and even soy in the Bronze Age. and the early Iron Age, about 3,700 years ago. The study is published in PNAS.
“Exotic spices, fruits and oils from Asia had reached the Mediterranean for centuries, in some cases even millennia earlier than previously thought,” Stockhammer said in a statement. “This is the oldest direct evidence to date for turmeric, banana and soy outside of South and East Asia.”
It is also direct evidence that, as early as the second millennium BC. There was already a flourishing long-distance trade in exotic fruits, spices and oils, which is believed to have linked South Asia and the Levant through Mesopotamia or Egypt. While substantial trade in these regions is extensively documented later, tracing the roots of this globalizing birth has proven to be a persistent problem. The results of this study confirm that long-distance trade in culinary products has bound these distant societies since the Bronze Age. Obviously, people had a great interest in exotic foods very early on.
For analysis, Stockhammer’s international team examined 16 people from the Megiddo and Tel Erani excavations in present-day Israel. The southern region of the Levant served as an important bridge between the Mediterranean Sea, Asia and Egypt in the second millennium BC. The aim of the research was to investigate the kitchens of Levantine populations from the Bronze Age by analyzing traces of food debris, including ancient proteins and plant microfossils, which have been preserved in human dental calculus for thousands of years. years.
The human mouth is full of bacteria, which continuously petrify and form stones. Small food particles are trapped and preserved in the growing calculus and these tiny remnants are now accessible for scientific research thanks to state-of-the-art methods.
For the purpose of their analysis, the researchers tested a variety of individuals at the site of the Bronze Age Megiddo and the early site of the Iron Age in Tel Erani. They analyzed what food proteins and plant residues were preserved in the calculation of their teeth. “This allows us to find traces of what a person has eaten,” says Stockhammer. “Anyone who does not practice good dental hygiene will continue to tell archaeologists what they have eaten for thousands of years from now on!”