Britain .. "disgusting" discovery, but it shows what people were eating in 2500 BC
Archaeologists in Britain have found human excrement estimated to date back to 2500 BC in the Durrington Walls area, 2.8 kilometers from the famous Stonehenge site in Wiltshire.
Although such a discovery may be disgusting to some or irrelevant, the researchers confirmed that by studying the samples of this discovery, it is possible to analyze and know the food habits that were prevalent in that ancient period.
The analyzed sample shows that ancient humans ate the internal organs of livestock and fed leftovers to their dogs.
The lead author of the research paper on the discovery, Dr Piers Mitchell, from the Department of Archeology in Cambridge, said that the samples indicated the presence of many parasites and it is "the first time that intestinal parasites have been recovered from Neolithic Britain and found" in this area.
The research paper said the type of parasites they found is consistent with previous evidence that ancient humans wintered on animals while building the Stonehenge site.
According to what they published in the journal Parasitology, "Evidence for the presence of these parasites in human feces indicates that the person has eaten raw or undercooked lung or liver from an already infected animal, which results in the parasite eggs passing directly through the body."
"Because hairworms can infect cattle and other ruminants, it appears that cows may have been the most likely source of the parasite's eggs," Dr. Mitchell explained.
Co-author Evelpna Anastios, who helped with the research while in Cambridge, said: 'The finding of hairworm eggs in both humans and dogs suggests that people were eating the internal organs of infected animals, and fed the leftovers as well.
their dogs.”
According to "Andy 100".
"This new evidence tells us something new about the people who came here to celebrate the winter holidays while Stonehenge was being built," added Professor Mike Parker Pearson of the University of California's Institute of Archeology, who excavated the Durrington walls between 2005 and 2007.
Pork and beef, the professor added, were roasted on charcoal or boiled in clay pots, but it seemed as though the offal were not always well cooked.
People were not eating freshwater fish in Durrington Walls at that time, so they must have picked up tapeworms in their residence here."
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