Ancient Mediterranean People Ate Bananas and Turmeric From Asia 3,700 Years Ago

Fossilized tooth plaque reveals a diverse and exotic palette reflected in the region’s modern cuisine



New analysis of the fossilized tooth plaque of 16 ancient Mediterraneans reveals that they consumed foods imported from Asia—like turmeric and banana, pictured—a thousand years earlier than researchers previously thought. (Illustration: Nikola Nevenov via Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)

By Claire Bugos
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
DECEMBER 23, 2020

The story of the trade route from Asia to the Mediterranean world is commonly thought to begin in the first century A.D. Now, research reveals that people in the Mediterranean ate foods that grew in South Asia—like sesame, soybean, turmeric and banana—at least 3,700 years ago.

New analysis of fossilized tooth plaque from 16 ancient Mediterranean people reveals that their diet was more diverse than researchers previously thought. In a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers reconstruct the eating habits of people living in the Bronze and Early Iron Age across the Southern Levant.

"We need to get rid of the assumption that people in the past only ate what grew in their immediate surroundings," Philipp Stockhammer, a professor at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, tells Claire Cameron for Inverse. "From early on, humans were interested in different tastes, exotic food, and elaborate cuisine, and took a lot of effort to get access to a variety of food."

The research adds to archaeological and textual evidence that food was an important part of the globalized import system for the people of Southern Mediterranean, reports Andrew Curry for National Geographic.

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mediterranean-food-asia-1000-years-earlier-180976619/