Changing the diet of ancient people - one of the reasons for the development of civilization

Fragment of rock paintings from the Sahara

When modern man is told about ancient people who lived thousands of years ago, many imagine half animal animals that feed on nails and teeth. But it turns out that already about ten thousand years ago very few people ate raw meat. Moreover, some members of the ancient population ate more vegetables and grains than meat.

Moreover, it’s not at all that people hunted poorly or there were few animals, especially when it comes to regions with a mild climate. Modern studies conducted by anthropologists in the Libyan desert , show that in this region was full of animals and birds. Several thousand years ago there was no desert here, instead of it stretched an endless savannah with a lot of lakes and vegetation. Here people lived in very favorable conditions.

Scientists believe that the ancient settlers occupied this region in the interval from 8,200 to 6,400 years BC. Settlement occurred soon after people learned to burn their pottery, making them more durable and resistant to external factors. This happened about 10,000 years ago (by the way, pottery appeared another 4,000 years earlier in Asia, here it appeared independently of other regions). The remains of ceramics show that thousands of years ago, people cooked vegetables and other products on fire, and did not eat them raw.
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Due to the climate, the remnants of products that people used to eat thousands of years ago have survived to this day.

Researchers claim that more than half of all food debris (or food traces) found in ancient pots are products of plant origin. In some cases, they were mixed with animal fat or other animal residues. According to experts working in the Libyan desert, a large number of plant products in the human diet is unusual for that time, and the find itself - pottery - is unique. In some pots, as it turned out, there was grain, in others - fruit, and thirdly - leaves and stalks of plants. Many plants whose remains were found by scientists are water plants, they were collected in lakes and rivers. Also found and remnants of plant species growing on land.

As for pots and other pottery, they were used both for cooking and for storing food. Perhaps, already then some kind of bread was made from grain, and also, probably, they were making syrups of various kinds. All this scientists found out by conducting a chemical analysis of the shards, which were once the walls of clay vessels in which ancient people kept or prepared food. Well-preserved remnants of products thousands of years old, for obvious reasons, can be found infrequently.


Rock drawings demonstrate the process of collecting some herbs by ancient people.

True, the preparation of food at that time was a difficult task. Difficult and long. However, cooking allowed to use for eating those foods that can not be eaten raw. So the menu of ancient people who learned how to cook was varied and, one might say, useful. For cooking, they used both open fire and heated stones . This is a fairly widespread practice throughout the ancient world.

Since a person learned to eat vegetables in large quantities, it became possible to keep at home animals that were bred. All caught animals were no longer necessary to kill and eat. Due to this, dairy products, meat, without constant hunting, wool, skin and bones appeared in the diet of people. In turn, the expansion of the diet of ancient people, the appearance of thermally processed foods in it contributed to improving the nutrition of young children. Women were given the opportunity to have more children as the threat of starvation receded.

Despite the fact that in this region there was a gradual increase in the level of development of civilization, plants began to grow here thousands of years after the domestication of animals began. Perhaps this was because the fertile savannas provided enough plants for the ancient people to feed, so this was enough for the needs of the population. Ancient chefs radically changed both the process of cooking and the diet of ancient people. It can be said that precisely those people who at the time were preparing food for contemporaries could change the development of human civilization in this region. Experts believe that similar processes occurred not only in the Sahara, but also in other regions.

Nature Plants , 2016. DOI: 10.1038 / nplants.2016.194