LONDON: Scientists has discovered the earliest evidence of humans processing plants for food in 10,000-year-old unglazed pottery found Libyan Sahara.
The invention of cooking has long been recognised as a critical step in human development.
Ancient cooking would have initially involved the use of fires or pits and the invention of ceramic cooking vessels led to an expansion of food preparation techniques.
Cooking would have allowed the consumption of previously unpalatable or even toxic foodstuffs and would also have increased the availability of new energy sources.
Until now evidence of cooking plants in early prehistoric cooking vessels has been lacking.
The researchers, led by University of Bristol in the UK, detected lipid residues of foodstuffs preserved within the fabric of unglazed cooking pots.
Significantly, over half of the vessels studied were found to have been used for processing plants based on the identification of diagnostic plant oil and wax compounds.
Detailed investigations of the molecular and stable isotope compositions showed that a broad range of plants were processed, including grains, the leafy parts of terrestrial plants, and most unusually, aquatic plants.
The interpretations of the chemical signatures obtained from the pottery are supported by abundant plant remains preserved in remarkable condition due to the arid desert environment at the sites.
The plant chemical signatures from the pottery show that the processing of plants was practised for over 4,000 years, indicating the importance of plants to the ancient people of the prehistoric Sahara.
“Until now, the importance of plants in prehistoric diets has been under-recognised but this work clearly demonstrates the importance of plants as a reliable dietary resource,” said Julie Dunne, a post-doctoral research associate at University of Bristol.
“These findings also emphasise the sophistication of these early hunter-gatherers in their utilisation of a broad range of plant types and the ability to boil them for long periods of time in newly invented ceramic vessels would have significantly increased the range of plants prehistoric people could eat,” said Dunne.
“The finding of extensive plant wax and oil residues in early prehistoric pottery provides us with an entirely different picture of the way early pottery was used in the Sahara compared to other regions in the ancient world,” said Richard Evershed, also from University of Bristol.
“Our new evidence fits beautifully with the theories proposing very different patterns of plant and animal domestication in Africa and Europe/Eurasia,” said Evershed.
The study was published in the journal Nature Plants. (AGENCIES)
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