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First Americans Thrived On Seaweed
New Scientist ^ | 5-8-2008 | Jeff Hecht

Posted on 05/08/2008 2:07:20 PM PDT by 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: americans; ancientnavigation; first; godsgravesglyphs; kelp; kelphighway; seaweed; seaweedhighway; seaweedtrail; thrived; tomdillehay
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1 posted on 05/08/2008 2:07:20 PM PDT by blam
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To: SunkenCiv

GGG Ping.


2 posted on 05/08/2008 2:07:56 PM PDT by blam (Secure the border and enforce the law)
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To: TigersEye

This is pretty neat, I can remeber as a child this old lady coming to the beach & gathering fresh seaweed.


3 posted on 05/08/2008 2:08:55 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (has never been known to be a sexually depressed religious spigot until today)
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To: blam

Mmmmmm, my favorite part of sushi is the seaweed! I LOVE nori, especially the teriyaki nori snacks. I put it in my soup too!


4 posted on 05/08/2008 2:20:20 PM PDT by ClearBlueSky (Whenever someone says it's not about Islam-it's about Islam. Jesus loves you, Allah wants you dead!)
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To: ClearBlueSky

They probably couldn’t bring themselves to eat crabs and lobsters, they are ugly! Who knew they were good to eat?


5 posted on 05/08/2008 2:23:56 PM PDT by calex59
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To: blam

pickled kelp and kelp relish were some of my favorites as a kid.


6 posted on 05/08/2008 2:28:24 PM PDT by liberty or death
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To: pandoraou812
You know what I say to people who eat water weeds?

SEA KELP!

;^P

7 posted on 05/08/2008 2:28:46 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Olympics for murdering regimes. Beijing 2008.)
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To: blam
My tribe (Yurok,N.Calif) still eat a lot of seaweed. They form it into little pie shaped rounds and sun dry it. I hate to say it but they look like cow pies. LOL They would dip it in the oil of lamprey eels, salmon, or sea lions. (in the old days)
8 posted on 05/08/2008 2:29:21 PM PDT by fish hawk (The religion of Darwinism is dying. Thank God!)
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To: TigersEye

I like seaweed & I really love sushi. I like seaweed masks & soap. There is quite a bit you can do with it. Its good in the garden too.


9 posted on 05/08/2008 2:31:17 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (has never been known to be a sexually depressed religious spigot until today)
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To: calex59
They ate lots of ugly things like lamprey eels, gooseneck barnacles, mudhens, and if you ever tasted acorns made into mush...uhhhhg.
10 posted on 05/08/2008 2:33:07 PM PDT by fish hawk (The religion of Darwinism is dying. Thank God!)
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To: pandoraou812

Got any good bladderwrack recipes?


11 posted on 05/08/2008 2:39:24 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Olympics for murdering regimes. Beijing 2008.)
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To: fish hawk
You don't have to tell me about acorns. I grew up in an area where there were lots of Indians(they don't like the term Native American here)and one of their staples were, of course, acorns. Being a typical boy, I tried to make acorn bread,Gag!.No one told me you had to soak them forever and remove the bitter taste!

Coastal Indians(Washington and maybe Oregon) used to put acorns into a small pit and pi** on them until they acquired a nice salty taste and then suck on them. Makes the old mouth water doesn't it?

12 posted on 05/08/2008 2:41:41 PM PDT by calex59
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To: TigersEye

Look here...http://www.chow.com/stories/10675


13 posted on 05/08/2008 2:43:54 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (has never been known to be a sexually depressed religious spigot until today)
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To: calex59

My tribe shelled them and put them in a creak bed and let the water run over them for a long time then they would dry them in the sun, pound them with a pestle until made into a flour. Then make a bowl shape in clean sand on the river bank and put the flour in there and pour fresh water over and over it ( it’s called leaching it) Then they would make bread but mainly make a soup or much out of it.They cooked the mush in baskets made just for that by putting hot rocks into the mush and keeping the rock moving to heat it but not burn the basket. To eat them raw right out of the shell will make you sick, that is, if you can keep them in your mouth long enough to swallow, as they are pure bitterness.


14 posted on 05/08/2008 2:52:29 PM PDT by fish hawk (The religion of Darwinism is dying. Thank God!)
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To: pandoraou812

Very interesting. Bookmarked in my Whole Foods folder. Unfortunately I can’t gather much seaweed up here in the Rockies. Good videos though.


15 posted on 05/08/2008 2:58:21 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Olympics for murdering regimes. Beijing 2008.)
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To: fish hawk

Yep, sounds like the Miwak tribe of this area, If you go along the rivers(actually creeks)around here you can see the holes in the rocks where they ground the acorns. Acorns will make you puke for sure unless you do leach them! Nice to hear from someone who knows the real deal about acorns! How deer eat them is beyond me!


16 posted on 05/08/2008 3:01:25 PM PDT by calex59
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To: TigersEye

I can get it & dry it. I don’t think it would mail well wet & soggy. Theres ocean seaweed & then the bay kind. I don’t know if theres much difference. The bay stuff tends to be more like grass. I will ask one of the crabbers I know.


17 posted on 05/08/2008 3:01:33 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (has never been known to be a sexually depressed religious spigot until today)
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To: calex59

I just remembered that there is a book at Amazon called “It will live forever”, by Julia Parker, an Indian lady from the Yosemite area. The whole book is on how the Indians prepared and cooked acorns. I’ve always wanted to try it but I live on Maui and we only have coconuts. They are good and you don’t have to cook them. LOL


18 posted on 05/08/2008 3:02:27 PM PDT by fish hawk (The religion of Darwinism is dying. Thank God!)
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To: blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2013233/posts

It's in everything. Obviously in things like sushi, but it's in shampoo, food, all sorts of things. Usually listed as alginate, agar, carrageenan, etc.

From the Wiki page: The food industry exploits the gelling, water-retention, emulsifying and other physical properties of these hydrocolloids. Agar is used in foods such as confectionery, meats and poultry products, desserts and beverages and moulded foods. Carrageenan is used in preparation of salad dressings and sauces, dietetic foods, and as a preservative in meat and fish products, dairy items and baked goods. Alginates enjoy many of the same uses as carrageenan, but are also used in production of industrial products such as paper coatings, adhesives, dyes, gels, explosives and in processes such as paper sizing, textile printing, hydro-mulching and drilling.

And it's in medicine, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaweed

And it's for dinner tonight here at home. We're having Spam Musubi and miso soup with seaweed threads.

19 posted on 05/08/2008 3:06:50 PM PDT by mountainbunny
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To: fish hawk
I had the good fortune to grow up around real, authentic American Indians. The Miwuks, or Miwaks. It hard to spell because they really don't have a language. My brothers best friend was a guy named Henry and some of his relatives are still around and if they find out you knew Henry, well bar the door! They knew all the old ways but wouldn't practice them, I mean after all who would eat an acorn if something better was available, but it was nice growing up with them and never having a clue we were "different".

Unfortunately, Henry and his brother, Butch, both died in auto accidents due to alcoholism when they were teenagers. Ditto their younger brother John. Still there are plenty of their tribe left, but most of them don't know me.

20 posted on 05/08/2008 3:08:26 PM PDT by calex59
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