Prehistoric Food
It is thought that Homo Habilis was the first of our ancestors to eat meat. Homo Habilis was around 2.5 million years ago and had a 30% larger brain than previous hominids. Meat was originally eaten raw, for the obvious reason that they had no fire. It was important to find food for the development of man and generally they would eat whatever they could find.
When early man learned to control fire, cooking on open fires was eventually developed - probably by accident. Evidence for when cooking meat started has not yet been found, however archaeologists working in places such as Swartkrans (South Africa) are searching for evidence to show that this was possibly 1 million BP. They are hoping to find animal bone with butchery marks that has also been burnt, indicating that cooking of meat took place by Homo Erectus (who had a 20% larger brain and smaller teeth with sharp points and thinner enamel).
Cooking food may have had a very significant impact on prehistoric man and some scientists even believe that cooking actually helped man develop the large brain that we have today. Cooking food significant increases the amount of energy that can be absorbed into the body and also reduces the diseases in raw meat. This means that food can be processed much more efficiently in the gut and so allowed extra energy to be used to develop the brain.
The open fires were probably made in shallow pits to conserve the heat and protect from the wind. Cooking methods probably used easy to obtain items such as plant leaves, grass and stones. It is believed that cooking on hot rocks first became a substitute for cooking on open fires about 9,000 to 10,500 years ago. This was partly for the exploitation of new food resources and also that cooking over a hot open fire, meant regular tending the fire pit. By adding large rocks to the fire however, meant they would gradually warm up and then hold heat for 48 hours or longer, conserving both fuel and human energy.
As pottery was invented, cooking became easier as it allowed for liquids to boiled over a fire, so that stews, puddings and soups could be made. Palaeothic hunter-gatherers would have had a varied diet, including meat, fish, shellfish, vegetables, nuts, insects and fruit. During the Middle Palaeolithic people began smoking and drying meat to preserve and store it.
Food
Beer
Beer is considered by some as the most important of human inventions, as it is likely to be one of the key reasons that farming was started, in order to grow hops for brewing. Beer would have been part of the daily diet for all members of the family and would have been more of a gruel, rather than frothy golden brown liquid.
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Cave of the Spider (Cueve de la Arana) is situated on the river Cazunta, around 10km from the municipality of Bicorp in Valencian Community, eastern Spain. The caves were discovered around 1920 by a local teacher, Jaime Garí i Poch. A human figure, the so-called 'Man/Woman of Bicorp' is near a natural cavity where there is the nest of bees. Hanging on three lianas (thin vines or ropes probably made of esparto grass which grows abundantly in the area) he/she is picking up honeycombs, while nearby are some stylised bees. Slung over his/her shoulder is a basket or gourd to harvest the honey. At the bottom of the rope is another figure carrying a basket on their back. The cave is also known for painted images of a bow and arrow goat hunt. The painting is believed to be 6000-10000 years old and dates back to the end of the Paleolithic Period. |
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Plants
Meadowlands and forest edges were filled with many edible wild plants, such as lilies and onions. The bulbs of these plants are very nutritious, but their energy is locked up in a dense, indigestible carbohydrate called inulin. The only way to make the bulbs digestible is to roast them for two days or longer.
Wine
Recent archeological evidence from Dr.Patrick McGovern (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology & Anthropology) suggests that winemaking might have originated during the Paleolithic, when early humans drank the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes from animal-skin pouches, crude wooden or stone bowls. Any Paleolithic wine made in such a way must have been limited to production during Autumn when the grapes ripe.
Ötzi, the Iceman
Probably the best example of prehistoric food is that belonging to the 5,300 year old Ötzi the Iceman found in the Alps in 1991. During the summer of 2005, I was able to visit South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano (Northern Italy) to see Ötzi and his artefacts for myself.
Investigation of the diet of the Tyrolean Iceman, also known as Ötzi, the well-preserved body melted out of a mountaintop glacier in Italy in September 1991, reveals that his last two meals included grain, herbs and meat - specifically red deer (Cervus elaphus) and ibex (Capra ibex). Analyses of the chemicals in Ötzi's hair suggests that meat may have made up between 10%-30% of the Iceman's diet. The grain from both meals was a highly processed einkorn wheat bran, possibly eaten in the form of fire-cooked flatbread.
Found near Ötzi's body were chaff and grains of einkorn and barley and also seeds of flax and poppy, as well as kernels of sloes (small plumlike fruits of the blackthorn tree) and various seeds of berries growing in the wild. Charcoal particles were also found in his intestine, indicating that his meal had been cooked on an open fire.
Living History - Prehistoric Food
Obviously as no "Prehistoric Recipe Book" exists, ingredients and cooking methods are based on research, experimentation and guesswork. A research team, commissioned by UKTV Food in 2007 and lead by Dr Ruth Fairchild from the Food Science Department of the University of Wales Institute (Cardiff), spoke to food experts and experimental archaeologists, such as Jacqui Wood, to compile a list of Britain's oldest recipes - defined as meaning three or more ingredients:
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10 ancient recipes: |
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As part of my Prehistoric Living History, I planning on trying a number of these different prehistic food recipes, some of which are from Jacqui Wood's books - "Prehistoric Cooking" & "Tasting the Past" and from Jane Renfrew's "Prehistoric Cookery: Recipes & History"
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Comments: From about 6,000BC. Start by picking the nettles, carefully, using only the small, young ones, as they grow more bitter with age. Wash the nettles one by one, to remove soil and insects (note: Acetylcholine and histamine are the primary nettle toxins; the latter causes dermal vesiculation. Formic acid was formerly thought to cause the persistent stinging action but it is now only associated with the initial pain at contact).
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Comments: Start by picking the nettles, carefully, using only the small, young ones, as they grow more bitter with age. Wash the nettles one by one, to remove soil and insects.
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Note: (i)Nettle tea has an unusual feature in that it changes colour if you add lemon. Its colour depends on the pH and acidity of the water. Children love to add a slice of lemon and watch the tea magically change from a dark green to a bright pink colour (see below). (ii) Nettle Tea can be gargled for a sore throat or as an astringent. Never take nettle tea while on prescription medications, as some reactions could occur, particularly in the case of blood-pressure medications. Stinging nettle tea is a mild diuretic and can drop the blood-pressure even lower. For more information on nettles visit - http://www.nettles.org.uk Wild Boar, Scallop & Mushroom (Kebabs) Comments: This Paleolithic recipe reflects hunted and gathered food, cooked in a very simple way. Cooking on sticks (skewers in our case) was a method of cooking used long before cooking pots had been developed. The food would have been roasted close to, but not in, the fire. A stick grid could be made to lay food on or the food could simply be threaded onto sticks like our kebabs
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To find out more about wild boars in the UK click here Comments: From about 2,000BC. Among the fish remains found in prehistoric middens (waste pits) in northern Europe are: eel, carp, pike, perch, trout, salmon, plaice, bass, mullet, cod and spurdog
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Comments: From about 6,000BC
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Comments: About 5,000BC
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Comments: Loosely based on "The Clan of the Cave Bear" (pages 81,82)
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"Ayla was slicing pieces of yam to put into a skin pot that was boiling over a cooking fire" - Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel (page 140) To read about Eric Pettifor's experiments with cooking in a leather pot >> click here Comments:
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Jacqui Wood |
