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Our Ancestors Did Not Suffer From Caries, But Took Drugs

September 26, 2002

When coming across ancient vessels the archaeologists first of all search for any remnants inside. As a rule, the vessels are crammed full with soil, the analysis of which can help to learn about the content of the vessel. In the course of excavation of burial mounds in Kalmykia Natalia Shishlina (State Historic Museum) collected a lot of soil samples from various vessels.

She applied for assistance to the Institute for Physicochemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science, Pushchino Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Sciences. Organic matter contains a lot of phosphorus, this element can be preserved in the soil for thousands of years, by analyzing the phosphorus content the researchers can identify the food that used to be in the vessels.

The burial mounds in Kalmykia were left by the cattle-breeders who lived there five thousand years ago. It is assumed that they were ancestors of Indo-Europeans or of the culture cognate to them. The mounds are erected to mark the burial places, so they certainly contain funeral food, nevertheless it gives some idea about the ancient people`s diet.

Some vessels where animals` bones lay contained meat broth, in the same vessels the scientists found the remains of a tick which parasitized on animals` skin and hair. The signs of the primary parasite, namely echinococcus, signify that ancient people used to eat animals` liver and entrails. Sometimes they used to cook fish-soup - two vessels contained a lot of microplates of river and lake fish.

If a vessel used to contain some plants, then the soil preserves their pollen and phytolites, i.e. fossilized cells. The content of the white water-lily pollen has indicated to the scientists that ancient people used to pour water from the local spring into the vessels. Other vessels had some porridge flavored with the wormwood, reed mace or goose-foot. The porridge had been made of unthreshed grains of wild barley and blue oat grass: their microcilia have been found in the vessels. The pollen has proved that the pots contained the beverage of the sage, mint and ziziphora herbs or honey. The soup recipe dating back to five thousand years is as follows: meat and liver broth seasoned with the coarse grinding grains, fragrant spicy herbs and sorrel.

Several vessels have proved to contain phytolites of the hemp. Herodotus wrote that the Scythian had been familiar with the narcotic properties of this plant, but it has turned out that the hemp was used already in the Bronze Age. The scientists have also identified the psychotropic plants - goose-foot, ephedra and wormwood. But the variety of plant cookery has not been limited by that: our ancestors used the amaranth, chicory, yellow-cup and gromwell.

The amaranth flour was good for making porridge, flat cakes, beverages , its seeds were fried. The gromwell seeds cure the nephrolithiasis, bronchial asthma, diarrhea. The majority of Ranunculus spcies are poisonous, but it is known from ethnography that the Indians eat some of their fruit uncooked, believing that Ranunculus bread is more delicious than wheaten bread and is absolutely innocuous.

Natalia Shishlina collected samples of the soil from the area of the stomach of the dead, as some food remnants could have remained there. In fact, the scientists have found the phytolites of unknown plant in the stomach of two skeletons - a man and a girl of 15, sacrificed to him. Probably, these are the signs of the famous "soma" - a narcotic liqueur of ancient Hindus. It is possible that the sick man had taken the hallcinogenic decoction as anaesthesia, and his sacrifice had been made drunk to fall into a trance? The soma recipe has been lost, so, by identifying the mysterious phytolite, Russian archeologists may reveal one of the mysteries of ancient history.

Like nowadays, ancient food was not always health-giving and salubrious. Some of the dead had suffered from gastrointestinal diseases - the researchers found arthropoda parasites in their stomachs. The fungus spores and the ticks testify that the products were sometimes low-quality: the grain was infected by bacteria, the meat was tainted. However, the teeth of the Bronze Age people were very good, the dental tartar being a result of bad water and metabolic disease. Nevertheless, our ancestors used to live pretty long: for 40 years, and quite often the burials contain old people of 60-65. That means that their nutrition was not bad after all.

Informnauka (Informscience) Agency