New Study Reveals What European Ancestors Were Eating During the Mesolithic Period Around 8,000 years ago

Seaweed, often celebrated as a superfood with numerous health benefits and sustainability credentials, seems to have been a dietary staple among our European ancestors for millennia, according to recent research.

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers have uncovered compelling archaeological evidence of seaweed consumption in Europe, spanning from the Mesolithic era through the Neolithic transition to farming and into the Early Middle Ages. This finding challenges the notion that seaweed fell into obscurity in Europe relatively recently.

The study, featured in the journal Nature Communications, underscores the rarity of recorded archaeological evidence for seaweed consumption, with most records predominantly focusing on non-edible applications such as fuel, food packaging, or fertilizers.

Intriguingly, historical accounts from the 10th Century illuminate the existence of laws governing seaweed collection in regions like Iceland, Brittany, and Ireland. Additionally, Pliny’s writings mention sea kale as an antidote for scurvy among sailors.

As we entered the 18th Century, seaweed had fallen into the category of famine food. Although seaweed and freshwater aquatic plants have retained economic significance, particularly in parts of Asia for their nutritional and medicinal properties, their consumption in Europe remained scarce.

The research team, led by archaeologists from the universities of Glasgow and York, conducted an extensive examination of biomarkers extracted from dental calculus obtained from 74 individuals across 28 archaeological sites spanning from northern Scotland to southern Spain. This analysis provided conclusive proof of widespread seaweed consumption, as well as the consumption of submerged aquatic and freshwater plants.

Biomolecular evidence surviving in certain samples revealed the consumption of various types of seaweeds, including red, green, or brown varieties, along with freshwater aquatic plants. Remarkably, one sample from Orkney even contained evidence of Brassica, likely sea kale.

While there are roughly 10,000 different seaweed species worldwide, only 145 are currently part of dietary traditions, primarily in Asian cuisine.

The team hopes that this study will shed light on the potential benefits of incorporating more seaweeds and indigenous freshwater plants into modern diets, with the aim of promoting improved health and sustainability among Europeans.

Professor Karen Hardy, a leading expert in Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Glasgow and the Principal Investigator of the Powerful Plants project, emphasized, “Today, seaweed and freshwater aquatic plants are virtually absent from traditional, western diets and their marginalization 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.”

Dr. Stephen Buckley, a co-author of the paper and a member of the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, highlighted the significance of the biomolecular findings in this study, emphasizing that they precede historical evidence from the Far East by over three thousand years.

Furthermore, this groundbreaking evidence not only indicates the consumption of seaweed in Europe during the Mesolithic Period approximately 8,000 years ago, a time when marine resources were actively utilized, but it challenges the common assumption that the introduction of farming in the Neolithic era led to the abandonment of marine-based dietary resources.

Dr. Buckley suggests that these findings strongly imply that ancient populations possessed a keen understanding of the nutritional benefits associated with seaweed, leading them to maintain their dietary connection to the sea.

Source: 10.1038/s41467-023-41671-2

Image Credit:  PROFESSOR KAREN HARDY