Researchers from a Scottish university have discovered “definitive archaeological evidence” that our European ancestors were consuming a nutrient-rich superfood for thousands of years before it became "virtually absent" from our diets.
The study, led by archaeologists from the universities of Glasgow and York, finds that seaweed and other local freshwater plants were eaten in the Mesolithic, through the Neolithic transition to farming and into the Early Middle Ages.
This suggests that these resources, now rarely eaten in Europe, only became marginal much more recently as a result of the introduction of farming.
While aquatic resources were exploited, the archaeological evidence for seaweed is only rarely recorded and is almost always considered in terms of non-edible uses like fuel, food wrappings or fertilisers.
Historical accounts report laws related to the collection of seaweed in Iceland, Brittany and Ireland dating to the 10th Century, while sea kale is mentioned by Pliny as a sailor’s anti-scurvy remedy.
By the 18th Century, seaweed was considered a famine food, and although seaweed and freshwater aquatic plants continue to be economically important in parts of Asia, both nutritionally and medicinally, there is little consumption in Europe.
The team behind the new study examined biomarkers extracted from dental calculus from 74 individuals from 28 archaeological sites across Europe which revealed “direct evidence for widespread consumption of seaweed and submerged aquatic and freshwater plants.”
Karen Hardy, professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Glasgow and principal investigator of the Powerful Plants project, said: “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.”
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Samples where biomolecular evidence survived revealed consumption of red, green or brown seaweeds, or freshwater aquatic plants, with one sample from Orkney also containing evidence for a Brassica, most likely sea kale.
There are approximately 10,000 different species of seaweeds in the world today, however, only 145 species are eaten, principally in Asia.
Researchers hope that the new study will encourage including more seaweeds and other local freshwater plants in our diets and help Europeans to become ‘healthier and more sustainable’.
Ms Hardy continued: “Our study 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 Human Consumption of Seaweed and Freshwater Aquatic Plants in Ancient Europe study was published in Nature Communications today can be read in full here.
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