Teeth tell a tale

Research involving the University is changing our understanding about when Mesolithic people began to consume cultivated plants, the precursor to our modern-day cereals. In a new joint study conducted by researchers at Cambridge, Cardiff, UCL and York universities, direct evidence that Mesolithic foragers of this region were consuming domestic cereals by 6600 BC has been found through the study of dental calculus from prehistoric remains. Using remains discovered during an excavation in Vlasac in the Balkans between 2006-2009, the team used polarised microscopy to study micro-fossils trapped in the ancient calcified dental plaque of nine individuals dated to the Late Mesolithic (6600-6450 BC) and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition phase (6200-5900 BC). 'What we happened to discover has a tremendous significance as it challenges the established view of the Neolithization in Europe,' - "Microfossils trapped in dental calculus are a direct evidence that plant foods were an important source of energy within Mesolithic forager diet. But more significantly, they reveal that domesticated plants were introduced to the Balkans independently from the rest of Neolithic domesticated animals and artefacts, which accompanied the arrival of farming communities in the region," he added. These results suggest that the common notion of what constituted the typical elements of Early Neolithic 'package' - pottery, ground stones, timber houses, polished axes, domesticated animals and plant species known only in cultivation - may need to be reconsidered.