The global spice trade has played an essential role in world history. However, because of poor preservation conditions, archaeobotanical remains of spices have been limited in archaeological contexts until now. A new analysis of plant microremains recovered from the surfaces of grinding stone tools from the archaeological site of Oc Eo in southern Vietnam has identified culinary spices that include turmeric, ginger, fingerroot, sand ginger, galangal, clove, nutmeg, and cinnamon. These spices are indispensable ingredients used in the making of curry in South Asia today.
The footed grinding slab from the archaeological site of Oc Eo in Vietnam. Scale bar – 10 cm. Image credit: Wang et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adh5517.
Spices have been highly valued and sought-after since ancient times and have played a key role in building bridges between different cultures.
South Asia has served as a major source of spices since the Bronze Age, and evidence has shown the movements of turmeric, cinnamon, and black pepper from the region to the Mediterranean during the second millennium BCE.
By the last centuries BCE and early centuries CE, historical texts from China, Roman Europe, and India suggest knowledge of even more exotic spices that originated in Southeast Asia.
Southeast Asia played a special role in the spice trade, both as a source of tropical products and as a geographical intermediary between China and the Indian subcontinent.
According to interpretations of Chinese records, the polity of Funan (first to seventh centuries CE) was located at the head of the Mekong Delta, from where it could control the Thai-Malay Peninsula and especially the narrow portage presented by the Isthmus of Kra.
Two major Funan-era archaeological landscapes have been identified: Angkor Borei in the lower Mekong Valley in southern Cambodia as a potential state capital, and Oc Eo, the focus of the current study, downstream at the head of the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam, as a trading entrepôt.
“Our study suggests that curries were most likely introduced to Southeast Asia by migrants during the period of early trade contact via the Indian Ocean,” said Australian National University Ph.D. candidate Weiwei Wang, first author on the study.
“Given these spices originated from various different locations, it’s clear people were undertaking long-distance journeys for trade purposes.”
“The global spice trade has linked cultures and economies in Asia, Africa and Europe since classical times.”
“Now we know the port city of Oc Eo played an important role in this trade as a cultural and trading crossroads.”
This photograph, shown at the Vienna Universal Exhibition of 1873, shows at left a woman crushing spices with a stone roller on a grinding slab similar to those from Oc Eo (but without separately carved feet). The woman at right is grinding ragi (finger millet of Late Harappan African origin), a grain cultivated as a food staple in Southern India, between two round millstones. Photo taken at Madras (Chennai) in Tamil Nadu by Nicholas and Curths in c. 1870, from the Archaeological Survey of India. Image credit: British Library Board.
Wang and colleagues from Australian National University, Vietnam’s Southern Institute for Social Science and Sun Yat-sen University were able to identify starch grains, phytoliths, and pollen grains of culinary spices — turmeric, ginger, fingerroot, sand ginger, galangal, clove, nutmeg, and cinnamon — on the surfaces of stone processing tools excavated at the site of Oc Eo.
“The preservation of plant remains in Oc Eo is exceptional — the seeds were so fresh it was hard to believe they were 2,000 years old,” said Dr. Hsiao-chun Hung, a researcher at Australian National University.
“We believe further analysis could identify more spices and possibly even uncover unique plant species, adding to our understanding of the history of the region.”
“And while families in modern-day Vietnam might have the option of turning to store-bought curry powder, the key ingredients have not changed much since ancient times.”
“The spices used today have not deviated significantly from the Oc Eo period,” said Dr. Khanh Trung Kien Nguyen, a researcher at Southern Institute for Social Sciences.
“The key components are all still there, such as turmeric, cloves and cinnamon.”
The findings were published in the journal Science Advances.
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Weiwei Wang et al. 2023. Earliest curry in Southeast Asia and the global spice trade 2000 years ago. Science Advances 9 (29); doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adh5517
