Archaeological work at the
Hot, roasted root vegetables are comfort food, and a plateful of carbohydrate is both satisfying and nutritious. Archaeologists have found that our ancestors thought so, too. A team working at the site has discovered and documented the remains of starchy underground plant stems (called rhizomes) cooked 170,000 years ago.
If, as seems likely, Hypoxis had a similar distribution in the past, it would have provided a secure staple food for people travelling within and
Our findings suggest that the food was transported to the cave and then cooked. The food could easily have been consumed directly in the field by the collectors, but our findings suggest this wasn't the case, adding extra information about social behaviour and sharing - and a glimpse into ancient communal behaviour - 170,000 years ago. Food was the focus for satisfying physical and social hunger.
Eating habits of our ancestors
Hypoxis angustifolia plants are gregarious so many can be harvested at once. Wooden digging sticks or sharpened bones may have been used to dig rhizomes from the ground.
The food was carried home to the cave, perhaps as a hide-wrapped parcel or a simple bunch tied with leaves.
Wood was also collected for the cooking fire that probably burned to small coals and hot ash before the rhizomes were added directly to the ashes for roasting. Some South Africans are familiar with this cooking technique: as children we made "askoek" (ash cakes) directly on coals and tapped them on rocks to dislodge the ash before garnishing our culinary treasures with apricot jam.
Some of the thumb-sized
Cooking made Hypoxis rhizomes easy to peel, and rendered them digestible by releasing glucose and breaking down the fibre. Such treatment was particularly important for the aged members of the group and small children that might otherwise have had difficulty chewing the rhizomes.
The Border Cave occupants were modern humans (Homo sapiens) with the same nutritional needs as people today. To enable our large brains to function we need to consume about 100g of carbohydrate per day. Hypoxis rhizomes may have fulfilled that need in the past.
We know, too, that
The addition of some carbohydrate to their diet would then have enabled early humans to process protein effectively. A balanced, healthy diet with a combination of cooked carbohydrate and protein - the "real" palaeo-diet - increased human fitness and longevity.
The discovery
We discovered the first of the rhizomes in 2016 while digging in
In total, 55 whole charred rhizomes were recovered, all from the same species. We worked together in the field over a period of four years, collecting modern plants with rhizomes so that we could compare these with the Border Cave ones in order to identify them.
With a permit from local wildlife authorities, we surveyed the
Eventually patience was rewarded, and a combination of morphological and anatomical evidence showed that the Border Cave rhizome was a Hypoxis.
Copyright The Conversation. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)., source