Can water-lilies provide a useful food?

In their efforts to follow a healthier lifestyle, many people I know are looking to the past to emulate more ‘natural’ ways of eating.  The ‘paleo diet’, for example, is based on foods our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate during the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods, which stretch from more than two million years ago up to the introduction of farming. A follower of the paleo diet often focuses on eating meats, seafood, non-starchy vegetables and nuts.

White water-lily (image by Opuntia via WikimediaCommons)

But archaeological evidence indicates that hunter-gatherers ate a much wider variety of plants than that indicated by the paleo diet. For example, there is extensive archaeological evidence to indicate that our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate starch-rich roots and tubers of various plants (Warren et al. 2014). Hunter-gatherers in Ireland also ate the seeds of plants that we would rarely consider to be food nowadays. A good example of this is the water-lily, a plant that is beautiful to look at, but also has many uses.

Seeds of Nymphaea alba L. (white water-lily) and Nuphar lutea (L.) Sm. (yellow water-lily) have been discovered at several excavations of hunter-gatherer (Mesolithic) settlements in Ireland (Warren et al. 2014). More than 2,000 waterlogged white water-lily seeds were found at Clowanstown, Co. Meath, while several thousand waterlogged yellow water-lily seeds were recorded from Lough Kinale, Co. Longford, in a hollow that may represent a processing or storage area. Although water-lilies naturally produce large numbers of seeds, the presence of water-lily seeds alongside other known foods in archaeological deposits, and the fact that they are sometimes found in a charred state, suggests human intervention. Charred examples include the white water-lily seeds found in a hearth pit at Mount Sandel, Co. Derry.

Yellow water-lily (image via Wikimedia Commons)

Citing the extensive consumption of yellow water-lily seeds by indigenous peoples of North America, Mears and Hillman (2007) have detailed the process of preparing water-lily seeds for consumption, which involves gathering capsules, fermenting in water (perhaps in a lakeside pit), followed by cleaning of the seeds, dehusking, winnowing, parching, grinding and then roasting. The process takes a minimum of two weeks, highlighting the extensive time involved in processing of these plants. I have not yet had the opportunity of trying out this process myself, but I do hope to do so in the coming months!

Water-lily seeds can also be used in other ways. The seeds can be fried in fat to make a kind of popcorn (Monk and Pals 1985), used as an insect repellent and in dyeing (Mac Coitir 2006), and the rhizomes may also be edible. Perhaps the next time you look at water-lilies, as well as appreciating their beauty, you will also consider the many uses water-lilies had for past societies, particularly as a food.

References

Mac Coitir N (2006) Irish wild plants: myths, legend and folklore. Collins Press, Cork 

Mears R, Hillman GC (2007) Wild food. Hodder and Stoughton, London

Monk MA, Pals JP (1985) Part 2: charred plant remains. In: Woodman PC, Excavations at Mount Sandel 1973-1977, pp. 79-81. HMSO, Belfast

Warren G, Davis S, McClatchie M, Sands S (2014) The potential role of humans in structuring the wooded landscapes of Mesolithic Ireland: a review of data and discussion of approaches. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 23(5):629-646

An archaeological find of spelt wheat in Ireland

I was reminded recently of an article that I wrote for Seanda, the magazine from the National Roads Authority (NRA) Archaeology section in Ireland (McClatchie 2011). The article presented results from the excavation of an archaeological site at Baysrath, Co. Kilkenny. The site was discovered when a new road was being designed and constructed, and it was found to contain a variety of settlement, industrial and funerary features. The excavation was carried out under the direction of archaeologist John Channing of Valerie J. Keeley Ltd, and I undertook the examination of preserved plant remains from the site.

Charred grains of spelt wheat, Baysrath

One of the most interesting finds at Baysrath was the discovery of substantial spelt wheat deposits in two different areas of the site. Spelt wheat chaff and grains were found in a post-hole located in an area of Iron Age activity (700 BC – AD 400). Spelt wheat grains and chaff were also found in a T-shaped drying kiln, and the grains were radiocarbon dated to the transition between the Iron Age and early medieval period (AD 400-1150). These two features contained one of the largest spelt wheat assemblages ever found in Ireland. Spelt wheat assemblages of comparable size are more often found at Iron Age and Roman archaeological sites in Britain. Interestingly, one of the archaeological features at Baysrath containing spelt wheat, the T-shaped drying kiln, is rare in Ireland. T-shaped drying kilns are more commonly recorded in Roman Britain, and the presence of this particular kiln in Ireland may reflect links across the Irish Sea at this time.

Charred chaff fragments of spelt wheat, Baysrath

The consumption of spelt wheat has seen a revival in Ireland during recent years. Although spelt wheat (Triticum spelta L.) is closely related to bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), modern spelt wheat food-products are often less processed than bread-wheat products, which may explain why spelt wheat is viewed as more of a ‘health food’.

Spelt wheat can tolerate poorer soils and less intensive management systems than the more commonly grown bread wheat, which is reflected in the increasing popularity of spelt wheat among organic growers.

There is also an important difference in how grain is separated from chaff in each case. Bread wheat is a free-threshing wheat and is easily separated from its enclosing chaff. Spelt wheat is, by contrast, a hulled wheat, whereby the chaff is fixed firmly to the grain and is therefore more difficult to remove. Although de-husking would have been a time-consuming activity in the past, spelt wheat chaff does give the grains protection in the field and in storage, providing a useful barrier against water and insect damage.

Archaeological evidence indicates that spelt wheat was introduced into Ireland during the Bronze Age (2500-700 BC), several thousand years after the introduction of other cereals, such as emmer wheat and barley. Spelt wheat had many potential uses, including its incorporation into food products, such as bread and gruels, as well as in brewing and perhaps as animal fodder.

But it seems that spelt wheat was only ever a minor crop in Ireland’s past. The discovery of a large spelt wheat assemblage from Baysrath is important because there are very few substantial finds of spelt wheat from archaeological sites in Ireland. Indeed, I would argue that spelt wheat is probably more popular in modern Ireland than it has been at any stage in Ireland’s past!

Reference

McClatchie M (2011) A long tradition of cereal production. Seanda 6: 8-10.

How did we store foods in the past?

Experimental pit storage of cereals

 

As we come towards the end of the year in temperate climatic regions of the world, we turn to stored foods to provide variety during the cold winter months. Many plants ripen only at certain times of the year. To make use of these plants throughout the whole year, we must find ways of storing them. The storage of plant foods was an important activity in many past societies, and there is abundant archaeological evidence for the storage of cereals in particular.

Cereal storage is important for the safe-keeping of both seed corn (for planting the following year) and ‘excess’ produce. Storage facilities for cereals can be located underground or above ground.  It is suggested that hermetic, or air-tight, storage in underground pits was the most widespread method throughout the world for the conservation of cereals in bulk prior to the 18^th century (Sigaut 1988). Experimental work and other studies (e.g. Reynolds 1979; Cunliffe 1992) confirm that no form of internal lining is required, but an airtight seal across the top of the pit is necessary. When the pit is sealed, micro-floral growth, which begins to infect the grain against the pit wall, soon consumes the trapped oxygen, replacing it with carbon dioxide. Once a critical level is reached, further decay is prevented, and the bulk of the grain remains fresh until the seal is broken. 

As part of my own experimental work, I filled a large pit with cereal grains, sealed the pit carefully, and then returned one year later to retrieve the cereals (see image above, which shows work with students at University College London). When we opened up the pit again, the smell was extraordinarily bad, but this was just the rotted grain around the edges of the pit. Much to our delight, the majority of the grain was in excellent condition and perfectly usable.

In archaeology, we often interpret the presence of cereal remains in pits as evidence for the storage of surplus grain. But the mere presence of cereal remains does not automatically indicate that these pits were used for cereal storage. Pits may instead have been used for the deposition of waste, including crop-processing and cooking waste. Charred cereals may also have been carefully placed into the pits, perhaps as part of a symbolic deposition. There can be a variety of explanations for the recovery of cereals in pits, rather than assuming storage.

Overground storage structure, northern Spain

Irish law texts of the seventh and eighth centuries AD indicate that tightly-woven wicker baskets, as well as bags, perhaps of leather, were used as containers for the transport or temporary storage of grain (Kelly 1997). Longer-term storage of cereals also took place in above-ground or ventilated areas, which would have allowed easier access to cereals than underground storage, because the latter requires the breaking of an air-tight seal each time the cereals are to be accessed. There is archaeological evidence for the remains of structures that could have functioned as raised granaries. These include ‘four-posters’, whose only surviving evidence is the traces of four posts that supported the above-ground storage area (pictured above is an elaborate example that I observed during ethnographic fieldwork in northern Spain). 

But again it is difficult to demonstrate that four-posters, for example, were actually used in this way. The cereals stored in such structures would not have been preserved unless they were subject to charring, waterlogging or another process that will enable the preservation of cereal remains. Instead, we are just left with the remains of a number of posts and occasionally a small quantity of food or other remains, which cannot be used to securely interpret such structures as raised granaries. It is clear, therefore, that we need to be careful when trying to identify cereal storage in the archaeological record.

References 

Cunliffe B (1992) Pits, preconceptions and propitiation in the British Iron Age. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 11(1): 69-83. 

Kelly F (1997) Early Irish farming: a study based mainly on the law-texts of the 7th and 8^th centuries AD. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. 

Reynolds PJ (1979) Iron-Age farm: the Butser experiment. London: Colonnade.

Sigaut F (1988) A method for identifying grain storage techniques and its application for European agricultural history. Tools and tillage 6(1): 3-32.