In the hunt for clues of menus past

I HAVE always been interested in how people lived and what they ate in prehistoric times, particularly in the middle and early stone ages before farming.

In the hunt for clues of menus past

It’s not only an interesting subject, I think it’s an important one.

It is not possible to say how old we are as a species because the point where you draw the line between hominid ape and human being is arbitrary. But we’ve certainly been around for more than 100,000 years, and some experts would say a couple of million. But agriculture first appeared in several parts of the world, simultaneously and independently, between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago. And it didn’t reach Ireland until six thousand years ago.

This means that for at least 90% of our past we were hunter gatherers. We have evolved to cope with the diet and lifestyle of our ancestors and we would probably be healthier and happier if we were more in tune with this legacy.

The trouble is that it’s not easy to get the information. Our pre-agricultural ancestors had very little environmental impact on the landscape they lived in and left few traces for the archaeologists.

But there are some. I have examined Mesolithic kitchen middens, mostly in coastal areas. These are basically prehistoric rubbish dumps and they give the impression limpets were a very popular food in Ireland seven or eight thousand years ago.

But this may be a false impression because limpet shells are particularly durable and it may be that other more perishable things, like seaweed for example, were even more popular.

The great invention that launched the Mesolithic was the bow and arrow.

The most ancient artifacts ever found in Ireland are small pieces of sharp stone called micro-liths which were used as arrow heads.

These would not have been very effective for hunting anything much larger than a hare and were probably more often used to kill birds and fish. We also know from excavations in the North that hazelnuts were important in people’s diets and were probably roasted and stored for use through the winter.

To get more information we need the help of anthropologists who have studied modern hunter gatherer cultures. There are a few of these cultures dotted around the globe, though they are disappearing rapidly, particularly those living in tropical rain forests.

The people of the North Andaman Islands have deliberately turned their backs on civilisation and so far this decision has been respected. Some Australian aboriginal people, even urbanised ones, work to preserve their hunter gatherer skills because they regard them as an important part of their cultural heritage. But elsewhere, in Africa and the sub-arctic for example, the life style will probably be gone in a generation.

Piecing all the fragments of evidence together it seems likely the first Irish men were very skilled at hunting small game and fish using bows and arrows and, probably, traps. And the first Irish women must have been extremely knowledgeable botanists with the skill to process and cook foods that would otherwise be inedible or even toxic.

I am writing about this today because of a fascinating book I got as a Christmas present. It’s called Wild Food and its co-authors are Ray Mears and Gordon Hillman.

Thanks to my Christmas gift I now understand the importance of the seed pods of the yellow water lily as a food source —- provided, of course, you know how to process them properly.

dick.warner@examiner.ie

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