image: Excavation of Megiddo (Area K). view more
Credit: Image credit: the Meggido Expedition
Researchers report evidence of exotic foods in the Near East of the 2nd millennium BCE, suggesting trade networks with South Asia. Long-distance trade has had a significant impact on cuisines worldwide, and although long-distance food trade is well-documented since the Roman era, the preceding history of food trade and subsequent cuisine evolution in Europe and Asia is unclear. Christina Warinner, Philipp Stockhammer and colleagues analyzed remains of food preserved in the dental calculus of 16 people who lived in the Southern Levant during the 2nd millennium BCE to ascertain their diet. The authors found samples of expected staple foods such as cereals, sesame, and dates, but also found evidence of exotic foods including soybean, banana, and turmeric. The results suggest that sesame had become established as a crop in the region by the 2nd millennium BCE and that bananas, for which little archaeological evidence is preserved, had made an appearance in the region. According to the authors, the results suggest that a robust trade network had developed between the Near East and South Asia by the 2nd millennium BCE, and offer physical evidence to support textual and other lines of evidence used to reconstruct past diets and agricultural expansions in prehistory.
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Article #20-14956:
"Exotic foods reveal contact between South Asia and the Near East during the second millennium BCE," by Ashley Scott et al.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Christina Warinner,
Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA;
tel: +1 617-949-0495;
e-mail: <warinner@fas.harvard.edu>;
Philipp Stockhammer,
Ludwig Maximilian University of Münich, GERMANY;
tel:+49 170 646 3031;
e-mail: <philipp.stockhammer@lmu.de>