Early Americans had a coastal diet : Nature News

Early Americans had a coastal diet : Nature News

Although there are at least three versions of this story online as I write this, I've gone first with the Nature article as it asks the most interesting question regarding the discovery of seaweed at the Monte Verde site. But first to the details of the latest research from the 14,300 year-old site in Chile...

Seaweed was an important source of food and medicine at the oldest human site in the Americas, suggests a new report. The findings suggest that these early explorers previously lived along the coast. Nine species of 'useful' seaweed were found in remains of dwellings at Monte Verde in Chile.

The specimens dated from 14,220 to 13,980 years ago. Remnants of these marine plants were found on the edges of stone tools, which the researchers propose were used to cut and prepare the seaweed. Some of them formed parts of 'cuds' — palate-shaped mixtures of plant matter that looked like they had been chewed on but not swallowed, perhaps for medicinal purposes. Several of the edible seaweeds are known to have been eaten by many different cultures over the millennia.

It seems clear that any controversy over the early dating of Monte Verde has now been resolved, and the fact that seaweed has provided the organic material to confirm the pre-Clovis status of the site is the icing on the cake, to use a somewhat inappropriate culinary metaphor. As we see...

The settlers would have had to travel around 90 kilometres to reach the coast, or 15 kilometres to reach an inland bay to the south. Such journeys hint that the people may have already been familiar with marine resources, allowing them to return to beaches and estuaries at opportune times to harvest the material...

...Stuart Fiedel, an archaeology consultant with a firm called Louis Berger Group in Virginia, who has long questioned whether people really lived at Monte Verde so long ago, questions whether this seaweed was used by people at the site.

Surely people using coastal resources would use more than just seaweed, he notes: oddly the excavations have not recovered substantial remains of the birds, fish or sea mammals that one might expect in the homes of a sea-linked people. “What type of people are we talking about that only make use of seaweed?” he says.

Probably the type of people who didn't need to bring back food resources from so far away, as they were adequately supplied by food resources closer to hand, as suggested here...

It also shows that "the primitive inhabitants of Monte Verde had a very varied diet … and were greatly motivated," says co-author Carlos Ramirez, a botanist at the University of Southern Chile in Valdivia.

The plant material was found around hearths or fire-places in wishbone-shaped huts, one of which is thought to have been a medicinal house. Some remnants were charred, indicating that they had been cooked. Two of the plants are known to be used as traditional medicines, for disorders such as stomach ailments and infections.

I'm not sure why one of the structures was thought to have been a medicinal house, but the overall impression given from these latest findings is that the inhabitants of Monte Verde were very well adapted to their surroundings - whether future discoveries will be made there or elsewhere nearby, remains to be seen.

Here's a final look at the latest research from this article at the National Science Foundation website...

The researchers also found a number of inland resources, including gomphothere meat. The finding suggests immigrants moved back and forth between the coast and inland areas.

"It takes time to adapt to these inland resources and then come back out to the coast. The other coastal sites that we have found also show inland contacts," says Dillehay.

A wide variety of food was found at the site, including an extinct species of llama, shellfish, vegetables and nuts. The findings make it more difficult to determine the rate of coastal migration in the Americas and the specific path of the immigrants.

"We have no hard evidence that people migrated either rapidly or slowly along the coast," says Dillehay. "Most scholars believe that the first people came via the land bridge but the question is open."

Evidence to support the coastal migration theory is particularly hard to find because sea levels at the time were about 200 feet lower than today. As the sea level rose, it covered most of the early coastal settlements. But the seaweed finding, one of the most significant, verifies the migrants' use of coastal resources, making it a likely path.

see also this article from Vanderbilt University.

and from Anthropology.net: Earliest Known Archaeological Evidence of Americans Found in Monte Verde, Chile

image credit:: Tom Dillehay, Vanderbilt University