During the Mesolithic in Europe, there is widespread evidence for an increase in exploitation of aquatic resources. In contrast, the subsequent Neolithic is characterized by the spread of farming, land ownership, and full sedentism, which lead to the perception of marine resources subsequently representing marginal or famine food or being abandoned altogether even at the furthermost coastal limits of Europe. Archaeologists have found direct evidence that seaweeds and submerged aquatic and freshwater plants were eaten in the Mesolithic, through the Neolithic transition to farming and into the Early Middle Ages, suggesting that these resources, now rarely eaten in Europe, only became marginal much more recently.
The brown seaweed Fucus serratus in its natural habitat. Image credit: Grubio-1 / CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed.
Seaweeds comprise approximately 10,000 species of macroalgae that live in intertidal and subtidal zones to around 300 m deep around many of the world’s coastlines.
Around 145 species of seaweed are eaten today, principally in Asia, sometimes with considerable health benefits.
Archaeological evidence for seaweed is only rarely recorded and is almost always considered in terms of non-edible uses, although seaweed was detected in masticated cuds from the 12,000-year-old site of Monte Verde in Chile.
“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,” said University of Glasgow’s Professor Karen Hardy.
In the research, the authors examined biomarkers extracted from dental calculus from 74 individuals from 28 archaeological sites across Europe, from north Scotland to southern Spain.
The analysis revealed direct evidence for widespread consumption of seaweed and submerged aquatic and freshwater plants.
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.
“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,” Professor Hardy said.
“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 biomolecular evidence in this study is over three thousand years earlier than historical evidence in the Far East,” said University of York’s Dr. Stephen Buckley.
“Not only does this new evidence show that seaweed was being consumed in Europe during the Mesolithic period around 8,000 years ago when marine resources were known to have been exploited, but that it continued into the Neolithic when it is usually assumed that the introduction of farming led to the abandonment of marine dietary resources.”
“This strongly suggests that the nutritional benefits of seaweed were sufficiently well understood by these ancient populations that they maintained their dietary link with the sea.”
The study was published this week in the journal Nature Communications.
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S. Buckley et al. 2023. Human consumption of seaweed and freshwater aquatic plants in ancient Europe. Nat Commun 14, 6192; doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-41671-2
