First Americans Thrived On Seaweed

New Scientist ^ | 5-8-2008 | Jeff Hecht

[blam]

First Americans thrived on seaweed

19:00 08 May 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Jeff Hecht

How times have changed. Instead of large amounts of meat and spuds, some of the first Americans enjoyed healthy doses of seaweed.

The evidence comes from 27 litres of material collected from the Monte Verde site in southern Chile, widely accepted as the oldest settlement in the Americas. Nine species of seaweed, carbon dated at 13,980 to 14,220 years old, played a major role in a diet that included land plants and animals.

Tom Dillehay of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, argues that the seaweeds were used both as food and medicine. Some were found in remains of ancient hearths and others had been chewed into clumps, or "cuds," which may have been used for medicinal purposes. Indigenous people still use the same species medicinally.

Several of the seaweed species seem to have come from a rocky marine bay that was about 15 kilometres south of the ancient settlement, but three other types are found only on sandy open-ocean shores that, at the time, were 90 km west of the site.

The choice of seaweeds, and local land plants also identified at the site, show that the residents had good knowledge of both coastal resources and foods from the interior, which allowed them to stay in the region year-round, concludes Dillehay, who has studied Monte Verde for three decades.

Slow progress

The most widely accepted theory holds that early Americans came from Asia across the Bering land bridge, eventually reaching South America. Dillehay says Monte Verde was a logical place to settle.

"It has one of the highest densities of economic resources for hunter gatherers in the world," he says.

[fish hawk]

I will be up in N. Calif. at the little town of Klamath on Aug. 17. My tribe is having the annual Salmon Festival and I will have a booth there selling my Indian art work. I've already shipped three boxes of my art to my sisters house so it will already be there when I arrive. They will have Indian barbecue salmon cooked on redwood sticks and possible sea weed but I doubt if they will have acorn soup. Maybe for themselves but not for the public. Also they have ceremonial dance exhibitions and traditional dress. It's really quite nice. The prohibit alcohol at these gatherings.

[TXnMA]

I LOVE nori, especially the teriyaki nori snacks. I put it in my soup too!

Different strokes for different folks, I guess... During my three years in Japan, I finally got to where I could handle miso (clear fish soup) and nori (seaweed) -- but I never got to where I could face them for breakfast! '-)

[TXnMA]

I LOVE nori, especially the teriyaki nori snacks. I put it in my soup too!

Different strokes for different folks, I guess... During my three years in Japan, I finally got to where I could handle miso (clear fish soup) and nori (seaweed) -- but I never got to where I could face them for breakfast! '-)

[TXnMA]

Also used for making dental impressions...

[blam]

Eat Like A Caveman For A Healthy Heart

[vetvetdoug]

The Indians prepared the acorns correctly which removed the tannins and calcium oxalates produced by Quercus quercus. Eating raw acorns will result in the toxins being metabolized and causing renal failure. How deer eat them without problems makes me believe they have some intrinsic way of metabolizing them without forming the toxins that damage the kidneys. Hogs, cattle, and horses that eat acorns will die from kidney failure...

[vetvetdoug]

I lived for four years in Japan and developed a taste for the yosimbe crackers made from seaweed.

[mountainbunny]

Oh, you’re so right!

It’s amazing stuff!

[fish hawk]

Are you sure about hogs? I ask because up on our reservation a lot of the people have pigs that just run wild on their property and there are acorns all over the ground there. I’m sure the pigs eat them but maybe not as I didn’t pay that much attention.

[sergeantdave]

acorn soup

The tribe here in the upper midwest gave up acorn soup probably 150 years ago; the European explorers had no taste for the stuff.

Now it’s wild rice soup, venison and a recent arrival - the Indian taco on frybread - my favorite.

The gatherring here in July is a recent revival of the old trapper rendevouz that the French voyagers attended hundreds of years ago. The earliest written account I have of a rendezous (pow-wow for you palefaces, or gun-touting, Bible carrying whiteys for you obama supporters) goes back to about 1570.

America’s second oldest city is at Sault Ste Marie, established by the French and Indians around 1620.

When we lived in the CA backcountry, we found two old Indian encampments in the Coastal Mountain range south of the Klamath. Lots of arrowheads, spear points and obsidian tools.

Well, good luck at your festival. Don’t eat too much acorn soup.

[vetvetdoug]

Domestic hogs that eat an inordinate amount of acorns die of renal failure...poisoning may be related to concentration of ingestion or the shelling of the acorns before ingestion in hogs. Wild hogs may learn to shell them and avoid the toxic effects of the shell. Squirrels and deer utilize acorns as a significant part of their diet, as do turkeys. I have seen hogs eat a good many acorns and not be affected and some eat them and die of renal failure. One of my favourite horses I believe died due to acorn ingestion...he was addicted to them (it appeared).

[blam]

New Evidence From Earliest Known Human Settlement In The Americas

Mount Verde site located 500 miles south of Santiago. (Credit: Tom Dillehay)

[SunkenCiv]

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[bert]

“A brave man it was, who first and oyster et” James Mitchner

[SunkenCiv]

The headlines elsewhere on similar stories was that the dating of Monte Verde has been confirmed. That’s big news.