Accordingly, these foods and drinks are likely to have been known around 2,700 years ago. It is also the oldest evidence of mold cheese consumption, the researchers report in the specialist journal “Current Biology”.
The high salt content and the constant temperatures of eight degrees Celsius in the tunnels in Hallstatt, Austria, which were used thousands of years ago, allow organic material to survive the eras that would have long since decomposed in other places. This also applies to the remnants of necessity.
A team from Austria, Italy and the USA has now scrutinized the legacies of miners from the Bronze to the Baroque period using modern molecular biological methods. “The specimens that we examined are almost perfectly preserved – they still contain human DNA, as well as DNA from intestinal bacteria, as well as proteins and parts of the food we eat,” says microbiologist Frank Maixner from the “Eurac Research” research center in Bolzano ( Italy).
The researchers found surprising insights: In a sample from the Iron Age, larger quantities of two types of fungus called Penicillium roqueforti and Saccharomyces cerevisiae were detected, as the Natural History Museum (NHM) Vienna announced. These are used for the refinement and fermentation of food. In this case, everything points to blue cheese and beer.
“It is particularly exciting that, based on our analyzes, we have clear indications that these specific yeast variants were not only used by chance, but were specifically bred and used for beer production,” said Maixner. In addition, a food consisting largely of bovine blood is likely to have been consumed, which the scientists interpret as a kind of Iron Age blood sausage.
“It is becoming increasingly clear that prehistoric culinary practices were not only highly developed, but that complex processed foods and fermentation technology also played a prominent role in our early nutritional history,” says Kerstin Kowarik from the NHM.
In retrospect, the diet of the former miners turned out to be high in fiber and rich in carbohydrates. It was supplemented by proteins from beans and, more rarely, by fruits, nuts or animal food, according to the scientists, who also analyzed the colonization of the intestines with bacteria over time.
It became clear that the intestinal microbiome in the most recent, but around 300-year-old sample from the salt mine was astonishingly similar to that of the more than 5000-year-old glacier mummy Ötzi. Maixner and colleagues have already analyzed the intestinal contents of the ice cream man in previous studies. “If 300 years ago people still carried a microbiome like their ancestors thousands of years ago, that would mean that major changes would take place here in a relatively short time,” says Maixner. Because the composition of microbes in industrial society is very different. (SDA)