While we may be used to a plethora of options when it comes to our diets, our early ancestors didn’t necessarily have that luxury. When we think of early civilizations, we often associate them with hunting and gathering for their food. Surely their options were meat and plants. However, recent archaeological discoveries have shown that there may have been more variety than we think!
From ancient bone soup to the shocking introduction of popcorn, historical diets may sometimes surprise you. Click through to check out the oldest discoveries of food and drink in the world!
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Fruit cake
In late 2019, it was revealed that a Michigan family had passed down a 141-year-old fruit cake that one of their ancestors had made in 1878. While not so much a discovery, it may be the oldest fruit cake on record.
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Fruit cake
It displaced a fruit cake found in Antarctica, left by explorer Robert Falcon Scott (second from left). Discovered in 2017, the cake was said to be in “excellent condition.” Scott unfortunately had died on the return journey.
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Cheese
Found during a 2013-2014 excavation, the cheese in question is the earliest known example of cheese in Egypt. However, it’s not considered edible, as it was shown to contain an infectious disease called brucellosis.
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Cheese
The discovery was made in the tomb of Ptahmes, and it’s said to date back as far as 3,200 years. A “whitish mass” filling broken jars, the cheese was supposedly made from sheep and goat’s milk.
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Beer
Originally looking through a prehistoric cave near in Haifa, Israel (pictured) for signs of plant foods that the Natufian people were eating, researchers stumbled upon this amazing discovery instead.
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Beer
While the liquid form of the beer was not identified, there was residue from 13,000-year-old beer. They even found enough to make their own version of the brew, to compare it with the ancient one!
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Butter
“Bog butter” may not be a familiar term to most, but the practice of storing butter in bogs for preservation (or potentially religious reasons) has gone on for thousands of years. (Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 3.0)
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Butter
In 2009, well-preserved bog butter was found in County Kildare, Ireland. The butter had turned white over time, and it was dated back 3,000 years!
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Bone soup
Found in a bronze cooking vessel, this bone soup is thought to be approximately 2,400 years old. It represents the oldest bone soup ever discovered in Chinese history.
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Bone soup
The soup was found it a tomb being cleared out to make room for a local airport near Xi’an (pictured). The city is also home to the famous Terracotta Army.
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Wine
In 2017, a discovery turned a working historical theory on its head. While winemaking was previously thought to have started approximately 7,000 years ago, residue was found that puts it at least 1,000 years earlier.
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Wine
This wine was not made in small bottles either. They used big ceramic pots, decorated with pictures of the grapes, in order to make wine on a much larger scale. The pots found are similar to qvevris, the pots that Georgians use to make wine today.
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Wine (liquid)
While Georgia may hold the record for the oldest example of winemaking, Germany surprisingly has the oldest example of actual wine in a bottle. Not only that, but the drink may still be drinkable. (Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 3.0)
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Wine (liquid)
Called the Speyer wine bottle, it’s been sitting in that same glass container for nearly 1,700 years. The bottle was found in a Roman grave in 1867, and it was only preserved so long thanks to a wax seal and a whole lot of olive oil.
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Noodles
Though you might have thought the Italians had the trademark on pasta, this discovery tells us otherwise. The oldest noodles ever found were 4,000 years old, and found in…
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Noodles
China! Found in a sealed bowl and buried under layers of sediment, these noodles were found in an excavation site near the Yellow River (pictured).
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Pita
This discovery changed our understanding of food history as we know it. Breadmaking was thought to have started 10,000 years ago—until bread crumbs were found that dated back 14,000 years.
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Pita
Found in the Black Desert in Jordan (pictured), archaeobotanists were actually looking for food leftovers from the Natufian tribe when they found these charred scraps on top of the cooking pit. (Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Popcorn
This discovery proves that popcorn definitely came before the movie! Corn was first domesticated 9,000 years ago, and this discovery showed that people were eating corn-based foods up to 6,700 years ago in South America.
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Popcorn
The cobs were found on the northern coast of Peru. But although the analysis of the cobs showed various ways of consuming the corn, it wasn’t a huge part of the ancient people’s diet.
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Beef jerky
Though the meat had long since stopped looking like this, and had actually turned green from oxidation, beef jerky was found in a 2012 excavation. It is the earliest beef product found in China.
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Beef jerky
It was found outside of a village called Wanli, and the meat has been dated back to what’s called the “Warring States Period.” This means that it’s over 2,000 years old!
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Pickled fish
Not the most appetizing of discoveries perhaps, but this pickled fish stuck around for 2,000 years. It was found in a sunken merchant vessel.
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Pickled fish
The shipwreck was found off of northwestern Italy, and included the remains of oil, grain, and wine as well. There were over 200 amphorae (a type of jug) to be explored!
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Honey
Honey is one of the few foods that never expires, and this discovery certainly put that statement to the test. 5,500-year-old honey was found in Georgia, outside of Tbilisi.
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Honey
The honey was found in ceramic pots in the tomb of a noblewoman. In ancient Georgia, people were buried with various types of honey to take with them into the afterlife.
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Mashed potatoes
A food staple in numerous cultures, this crop might be even more resilient than we originally believed! In 2017, starch granules were found that reveal the use of potatoes 10,900 years ago.
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Mashed potatoes
One of the few discoveries to occur on the North American continent, the remains were actually found in Utah. They represent “the oldest evidence of cultivation of the plant in North America.”
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Champagne
This discovery might not seem too impressive, as the Champagne found was only 200 years old, but the really fascinating part is that it is still drinkable!
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Champagne
Found in a sunken ship in the Baltic Sea, divers discovered around 30 bottles of Champagne. Allegedly from the 1780s, the divers tested a bottle themselves before even hitting the coast. You know, for science…
See also: Interesting facts about Champagne.
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