The REAL paleo diet: Researchers find Stone Age people ate surprisingly large amounts of fish

[mrostov]

The REAL paleo diet: Researchers find Stone Age people ate surprisingly large amounts of fish (and likely fought over the best spots to make a catch)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-Stone-Age-people-ate-large-amounts-fish.html

 

[Toddy]

In Sweden.


Sorry, mrostov, but the Daily Mail drives folks nuts because of it's terrible reporting. It's inclined to glance over a subject and give false emphasis to little 'bon mots' that might grab the attention.

We already know of the huge use of sea marsh resources, the wild fowling and the seasonal fish runs though, and the shellfish exploitation.

What evidence for 'violence' and 'fighting' ? there was no reference made to any injuries to the bones.
Mind, low population densities, and there are a heck of a lot of watery bits in Sweden.

We do get fish bone preservation, in shell middens. Everything organic rots, unless it's in an environment that preferentially preserves it. So, dessication, or encased in permanent ice, or in tannin rich bog waters, (good for leather, and wool, terrible for bones) or in mineral rich layers of shell middens where antler, and bone are preserved instead of leached out into the soil or water.

Better report of this kind of thing here......
http://www.uwhg.org.uk/reports/uwhg_meetings/01_apr_10/01_apr_10.html

 

[Janne]

Fish has been a stable in Swedish (+ Finnish, Danish and Norwegian) cuisine until fairly recently. Fish has become fairly expensive.
Even the ’poor man’s’ food, herring, is pricy today.
That research just confirmed that fish eating went back to paleo times. It was thought before that they were eating more forest food and less sea food.

And as Toddy says, you can not extrapolate that to the rest of Europe and the British Isles.

 

[Toddy]

What of the seaweeds though Janne ?
Do you know if they're part of the traditional foods of the region? They are very much part of the foods of the past of the British Isles. Still are in some areas, and we're taught that there are no poisonous seaweeds around our coasts, just that some are more edible than others !

M

 

[Robson Valley]

Looking more and more like we need to pick through the garbage, the middens, if we can find them. Good stuff for 14C dataing, too.
The Heiltsuk were very proficient sea-mammal hunters, 14,500 years ago on the BC coast and that means good boating skills.
One midden I know of, they drilled to 8,000 yrs old oyster shell and were not at the bottom.
Most every interior First Nation took advantage of trout & salmonid spawning runs.

Plants of Haida Gwaii (by N. J. Turner) describes a dozen or more seaweeds of value.
A few from the intertidal zone are eaten fresh or with other foods.
Various species of kelp (Nereocystis) fronds were harvested when covered with herring spawn and dried by the hundreds.
The stipe can be treated for use as heavy duty fishing line (knotted together for 300' lengths or more) and boat ropes.

 

[daveO]

What of the seaweeds though Janne ?
Do you know if they're part of the traditional foods of the region? They are very much part of the foods of the past of the British Isles. Still are in some areas, and we're taught that there are no poisonous seaweeds around our coasts, just that some are more edible than others !

M

Bara Lawr (Laverbread) is still popular around here. I could do with a full Welsh breakfast with laverbread and black pudding right now actually

 

[Janne]

No sea weed eaten in Sweden by tradition.

Traditionally the Swedes did not even eat funghi. It was the King Karl Johan (Bernadotte ) the Frenchie that basically introduced funghi eating.

Mussels, crsbs, lobster, Dublin Prawns - no tradition beyond a Century or do.
Only shellfish eaten traditionally was the (freshwater) crayfish, but I do not kniw how old that custom is.

 

[Toddy]

Bara Lawr (Laverbread) is still popular around here. I could do with a full Welsh breakfast with laverbread and black pudding right now actually

I mind chewing staff when I was little. I think it's the stem of the kelp, you peel it back and it's, well, it's just something kids used to chew, like a stalk of rhubarb but not tangy, just the same kind of mouth feel. An unami kind of taste to it.

M

 

[Toddy]

No sea weed eaten in Sweden by tradition.

Traditionally the Swedes did not even eat funghi. It was the King Karl Johan (Bernadotte ) the Frenchie that basically introduced funghi eating.

Mussels, crsbs, lobster, Dublin Prawns - no tradition beyond a Century or do.
Only shellfish eaten traditionally was the (freshwater) crayfish, but I do not kniw how old that custom is.

Masses of shell middens elsewhere though. Denmark, Scotland, England, Ireland right across the world to Oman and the Americas.
I wonder if it's the coastline that isn't conducive to their growth.
Oysters are so common in medieval sites here that we just bag the blooming shells and roughly weigh them.
The apprentices in London went on strike several hundred years ago, complaining about being fed salmon five days a week, and oysters every day in season
So commonplace that they were poor folks food.

M

 

[santaman2000]

.....The apprentices in London went on strike several hundred years ago, complaining about being fed salmon five days a week, and oysters every day in season
So commonplace that they were poor folks food.

M

Likewise the indentured servants in New England went on strike in colonial times. One of their complaints was being fed lobster too often.

 

[Janne]

Well, the Swedish East coast has a lot of ice age abraded cliffs. Lots of islands. Plenty of close to the shore Blue mussels, and limpets. But you need to be able to swim. The Southern tip is sand and gravel. Baltic coast does not have much in the shellfish way.
Lskes and rivers had plenty of fresh water mussels, plus crayfish.

Easily found protein.
Chasing after a moose is difficult.

 

[boubindica]

Bara Lawr (Laverbread) is still popular around here. I could do with a full Welsh breakfast with laverbread and black pudding right now actually

Laverbread? Never heard of it! Im assuming its bread made with seaweed? Sounds yummy... Going to look for a recipe unless anyone here has one?

 

[daveO]

Laverbread? Never heard of it! Im assuming its bread made with seaweed? Sounds yummy... Going to look for a recipe unless anyone here has one?

It's not actually bread these days, more something that you spread on bread. Traditionally it was prepared into a kind of loaf so I guess that's how it got it's name but I've seen it mixed with oats to make a sort of flatbread. The japanese eat it too so there should be a lot of recipes around.

 

[boubindica]

It's not actually bread these days, more something that you spread on bread. Traditionally it was prepared into a kind of loaf so I guess that's how it got it's name but I've seen it mixed with oats to make a sort of flatbread. The japanese eat it too so there should be a lot of recipes around.

I imagine it's similar to dulse, were it made into a paste then? I've dried dulse before and used it instead of salt... lovely savouriness

 

[snappingturtle]

Bara Lawr (Laverbread) is still popular around here. I could do with a full Welsh breakfast with laverbread and black pudding right now actually

Or any time of day that stuff is lovely, I need buckets of it! so I could have it every day!

 

[Janne]

In fact, seaweed has been eaten in Arctic Norway, on the Atlantic coast and Barents Sea coast.
I checked with my old friend, and he said not only did he eat it as young, but it was also given to their sheep mixed with hay.
He came from a relatively well off fisher family, but they still had no means to get veg and fruit before WW2.
He stems from a settlement called Windstad here on Moskenes øya, and that is also his last name.

He also said that the coast Sami were consuming all sort of seaweed in addition to the reindeer lichen during winters.
Summertime people here were collecting lots of plants I personally did not know were eatable.

 

[Tengu]

All these things can come out in isotopic tests, yes?

The trouble with coastal sites is that most are underwater due to sea level rising. Our early ancestors certainly were Strandlopers.

I love seaweed!

 

[Janne]

Yes, but you can try to dig up their ancestors.....

 

[Ascobis]

"Lutefisk: the piece of cod which passes all understanding."

I came in late, so am still wondering what is the issue? Migration maps show us spreading from northern Africa to Australia along the coastline. North America appears to have been settled in the same manner with a layover at Baikal. Beachfront property always is the favorite. Why would anyone want to face down a surly megafauna specimen with only a pointed stick when all these tasty mussels are right here? "Lovely Grub" has a different meaning when you're kicking rotten logs in search of supper.

I'd like to ask the experts: So reports say some population ate something. Was it nutritious and a better calories expended/calories consumed choice, or was it frikken winter and we're all starving so let's eat anything that isn't snow? Is kelp nutritious or is it just belly-filling cellulose?

 

[Janne]

A bit late but.....
Lut fisk is delicious. Those tv chefs that say othervise just do it because it makes their dull programmes more interesting.

All living organisms contain nutrition. We as humans might not be able to digest all forms of food, but still. Wood is out, sap and the inner bark and young leaves ( plus nuts and fruit) are fine.
You just have to eat the ones that are not poisonous.

Migration? Remember, the Out of Africa theory is just a theory.

Based on that the findings of (so far) oldest humanoids are from Africa.
( except the find in Germany a few years back....hmmmmm)

Plus, if we look on the few remaining hunter gatherer tribes still in existense, they basically eat anything eatable they come across.