Cooked leafy greens make up a significant portion of our diet today. But archaeologists and archaeobotanists have discovered that cooked leafy greens were first served 3,500 years ago in West Africa.
Teams from Germany’s Goethe University and the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom investigated more than 450 prehistoric pots. 66 of them had signs of lipids or substances that are insoluble in water.
Chemists from the University of Bristol extracted lipid profiles on behalf of the Nok research team at Goethe University. The goal was to reveal which plants were in use.
More than a third of the 66 lipid profiles had very diverse and complicated patterns. Thereby, indicating that different plant species and portions were useful, as published in the journal ‘Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.’
Archaeology and archaeobotany academics at Goethe University and chemical scientists from the University of Bristol used their expertise to confirm that such west African dishes had been there for 3,500 years.
Most varied plant lipid profiles
The leafy sauces and spices and vegetables, also fish, and meat go hand in hand. They also compliment starchy mainstays of the main meal, such as pounded yam in the southern part of West Africa or thick porridge from pearl millet in the drier savannahs in the north.
“Carbonised plant remains such as seeds and nutshells preserved in archaeological sediments reflect only part of what people ate back then,” said Katharina Neumann.
The researchers from Bristol proved that the Nok people in central Nigeria consumed a variety of plant species. It was possible by using lipid biomarkers and stable isotope measurements.
It was feasible to verify that the Nok people produced pearl millet using carbonized plant remains from central Nigeria. But it remains a mystery whether they also employed starchy vegetables like yam, and recipes they made using pearl millet.
“These unusual and highly complex plant lipid profiles are the most varied seen (globally) in archaeological pottery to date,” says Julie Dunne from the University of Bristol’s Organic Geochemistry unit.