Scientists analyse the prehistoric diet of East Africans

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A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, with colleagues from the University of Florida, provide the first evidence for diet and subsistence practices of ancient East African pastoralists.

The development of pastoralism is known to have transformed human diets and societies in grasslands worldwide. Cattle-herding has been (and still is) the dominant way of life across the vast East African grasslands for thousands of years.

This is indicated by numerous large and highly fragmentary animal bone assemblages found at archaeological sites across the region, which demonstrate the importance of cattle, sheep and goat to these ancient people.

The researchers examined ancient potsherds from four sites in Kenya and Tanzania, covering a 4000-year timeframe (c 5000 to 1200 BP), known as the Pastoral Neolithic, using a combined chemical and isotopic approach to identify and quantify the food residues found within the vessels. This involves extracting and identifying the fatty acids, residues of animal fats absorbed into the pot wall during cooking.

The findings, published today in the journal PNAS, showed that by far the majority of the sherds yielded evidence for ruminant (cattle, sheep or goat) meat, bones, marrow and fat processing, and some cooking of plants, probably in the form of stews.

Dr Julie Dunne, from the University of Bristol's School of Chemistry, who led the study, said: "How exciting it is to be able to use chemical techniques to extract thousands of year-old foodstuffs from pots to find out what these early East African herders were cooking.

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200413150744.htm

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I love reading about early humans! There are some oral traditions from 40,000 years ago with the Aborigines!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunditjmara

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so east African's ate east African food...?

 

I'm sure the study needs more study..