Our Ancestors Did Not Suffer From Caries, But Took Drugs!

Informnauka (Informscience) Agency ^ | 9-26-02 | N.I. Shishlina, Ph. D. (History), State Historic Museum, Moscow

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Our Ancestors Did Not Suffer From Caries, But Took Drugs	For further information, please contact: Tatiana Pitchugina Informnauka (Informscience) Agency textmaster@informnauka.ru 7-095-2675418		26 September 2002 keywords Archaeology, Food, History

When coming across ancient vessels the archaeologists first of all search for any remnants inside. As a rule, the vessels are crammed full with soil, the analysis of which can help to learn about the content of the vessel. In the course of excavation of burial mounds in Kalmykia Natalia Shishlina (State Historic Museum) collected a lot of soil samples from various vessels.

She applied for assistance to the Institute for Physicochemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science, Pushchino Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Sciences. Organic matter contains a lot of phosphorus, this element can be preserved in the soil for thousands of years, by analyzing the phosphorus content the researchers can identify the food that used to be in the vessels.

The burial mounds in Kalmykia were left by the cattle-breeders who lived there five thousand years ago. It is assumed that they were ancestors of Indo-Europeans or of the culture cognate to them. The mounds are erected to mark the burial places, so they certainly contain funeral food, nevertheless it gives some idea about the ancient people`s diet.

Some vessels where animals` bones lay contained meat broth, in the same vessels the scientists found the remains of a tick which parasitized on animals` skin and hair. The signs of the primary parasite, namely echinococcus, signify that ancient people used to eat animals` liver and entrails. Sometimes they used to cook fish-soup - two vessels contained a lot of microplates of river and lake fish.

If a vessel used to contain some plants, then the soil preserves their pollen and phytolites, i.e. fossilized cells. The content of the white water-lily pollen has indicated to the scientists that ancient people used to pour water from the local spring into the vessels. Other vessels had some porridge flavored with the wormwood, reed mace or goose-foot. The porridge had been made of unthreshed grains of wild barley and blue oat grass: their microcilia have been found in the vessels. The pollen has proved that the pots contained the beverage of the sage, mint and ziziphora herbs or honey. The soup recipe dating back to five thousand years is as follows: meat and liver broth seasoned with the coarse grinding grains, fragrant spicy herbs and sorrel.

Several vessels have proved to contain phytolites of the hemp. Herodotus wrote that the Scythian had been familiar with the narcotic properties of this plant, but it has turned out that the hemp was used already in the Bronze Age. The scientists have also identified the psychotropic plants - goose-foot, ephedra and wormwood. But the variety of plant cookery has not been limited by that: our ancestors used the amaranth, chicory, yellow-cup and gromwell.

The amaranth flour was good for making porridge, flat cakes, beverages , its seeds were fried. The gromwell seeds cure the nephrolithiasis, bronchial asthma, diarrhea. The majority of Ranunculus spcies are poisonous, but it is known from ethnography that the Indians eat some of their fruit uncooked, believing that Ranunculus bread is more delicious than wheaten bread and is absolutely innocuous.

Natalia Shishlina collected samples of the soil from the area of the stomach of the dead, as some food remnants could have remained there. In fact, the scientists have found the phytolites of unknown plant in the stomach of two skeletons - a man and a girl of 15, sacrificed to him. Probably, these are the signs of the famous "soma" - a narcotic liqueur of ancient Hindus. It is possible that the sick man had taken the hallcinogenic decoction as anaesthesia, and his sacrifice had been made drunk to fall into a trance? The soma recipe has been lost, so, by identifying the mysterious phytolite, Russian archeologists may reveal one of the mysteries of ancient history.

Like nowadays, ancient food was not always health-giving and salubrious. Some of the dead had suffered from gastrointestinal diseases - the researchers found arthropoda parasites in their stomachs. The fungus spores and the ticks testify that the products were sometimes low-quality: the grain was infected by bacteria, the meat was tainted. However, the teeth of the Bronze Age people were very good, the dental tartar being a result of bad water and metabolic disease. Nevertheless, our ancestors used to live pretty long: for 40 years, and quite often the burials contain old people of 60-65. That means that their nutrition was not bad after all.

Notes for editor

Further information: N.I. Shishlina, Ph. D. (History), State Historic Museum, Moscow, Tel.: +7 (095) 924-39-05, nshishlina@mail.ru, shishlin@rol.ru

Peer reviewed publication and references

"Ostrovnoy burial mounds", proceedings of SHM, in print, in Russia language.

Reference URL :

http://www.informnauka.ru/eng/2002/2002-08-16-02_217_e.htm

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[DBtoo]

Interesting article. The business about the teeth caught my attention. I have wondered how it is that when you see ancient skulls, they always seem to have strait teeth. I'm starting to wonder if crooked teeth is a modern phenomena. Perhaps people used to have much wider jaws, therefore their teeth would fit better with more room?

I wonder if among some humans, jaws started shrinking (as an evolutionary change? or mutation?) and the teeth didn't quite catch up, or shrink up in time. I had really crooked teeth as a kid and had to wear braces, as many children these days do. It's just wierd though, I've never seen an old skull with crowded, crooked teeth. There's probably a reason but that information has gone into hiding probably, along with a lot of other anthropological research and discoveries, as that goes against our blindly PC society.

[Notforprophet]

I don't really caries, but this sounds vey series.

[krb]

That is rediculous.

[Ahban]

A teacher told me 20 years ago that Scandanavians all had straight teeth, and that a lot of peoples do, but the mixing of ethnic groups seems to produce teeth that are mismatched with the jaws.

[redhead]

"Interesting article. The business about the teeth caught my attention. I have wondered how it is that when you see ancient skulls, they always seem to have strait teeth. I'm starting to wonder if crooked teeth is a modern phenomena. Perhaps people used to have much wider jaws, therefore their teeth would fit better with more room?"

Find a copy of the book, "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration," by Weston A. Price, DDS. It will answer ALL your questions. Includes photographs.

[redhead]

"A teacher told me 20 years ago that Scandanavians all had straight teeth, and that a lot of peoples do, but the mixing of ethnic groups seems to produce teeth that are mismatched with the jaws."

Anthropologists and paleontologists in Iceland have stated that between the years 1200 and 1600 (I think,I don't have the dates with me) that there was not one cavity in Icelandic people. Presumably, this is a result of research done on exhumed remains, and is extrapolated from the number of skulls they were able to examine.

[Smocker]

I read somewhere bottle feeding versus breastfeeding is the difference for some of the crooked teeth problems of modern first world countries. Much less incidence of crooked teeth where mothers nurse their young.

[DBtoo]

Interesting! So people in the first world countries do have more crooked teeth? I wonder if jaw shape could have anything to do with it too. I wonder if people with more narrow jawlines have more incidence of crooked teeth. But that is an interesting theory about the breast-feeding. It does benefit babies in so many ways.

[DBtoo]

Now that you mention that, my father's family is/was French from south Louisiana. That family lived in that part of Louisiana since the 1700s when they came directly from France with some other families, and all my aunts and my father had strait teeth. My father married an Austrian women and had us kids, and while my mother also had strait teeth, I didn't until after braces.

[DBtoo]

Thanks! Although I'm sure it will say to give up suger, refined flour, processed foods, all those things that we know are bad for us but seem to have a hard time staying away from! Seriously though, that is something I have always wondered about so I will check it out. Thanks again.

[Coleus]

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[SunkenCiv]

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[MetaThought]

It’s all got to do with Vitamin K2.

One of the best blogs on this topic.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/dental%20health

[Salamander]

But none of it will cure this.

[dennisw]

Read that back in 1973. Weston Price is the man! I take D and K2 due to their research

[redhead]

"Read that back in 1973. Weston Price is the man! I take D and K2 due to their research."

I'm glad to see this thread get revived. Living in Alaska means Vitamin D in large amounts year round. Avoiding processed foods or minimally altered stuff helps a lot, too. Yes, WAP was a prophet far ahead of his time. I always think of his patient, long-suffering wife, who made all those trips into the wilderness with him, took many of the photos, and always wore a dress. :o)

[dennisw]

Weston Price visited a lot of Northern Canada Indian tribes and the Scots Hebrides. Same cold as Alaska

Be there-—>>
http://www.westonaprice.org/basicnutrition/vitamin-k2.html

[dennisw]

I’m glad to see this thread get revived. Living in Alaska means Vitamin D in large amounts year round......

Going to tell you something you won’t read elsewhere
Vit D is a fat soluble vitamin and as such depends on a properly functioning liver. So people can get a lot of sun exposure but it won’t translate into proper Vitamin D creation and dispersal in the human body

So heal the liver first
Plus take cod liver oil plus some D and K2 until it is healed. All healing starts with the liver. The Chinese knew this and so did Max Gerson