What people ate thousands of years ago didn’t always disappear with the meal. Microscopic remains of food preserved in ancient pottery show that hunter-gatherer communities across Northern and Eastern Europe were preparing varied meals between the 6th and 3rd millennium B.C. Instead of relying only on fish or wild game, these dishes often combined seafood with berries, grasses, seeds, and other plants.
In a study published in PLOS One, archaeobotanists from the University of York examined organic residues preserved on pottery fragments from archaeological sites across the region. Their analysis indicates that plants were regularly cooked together with seafood — a part of prehistoric diets that has been difficult to document.
“This study shows the complexity of hunter-gatherer-fisher diets during the Mesolithic in Europe,” lead author Lara González Carretero told Discover. “Previous studies had been biased towards animal products. Plants have been overlooked due to the difficulties in assessing their connection with human diet.”
Microscopic Food Traces Reshape Prehistoric European Cuisine
To identify these overlooked plant ingredients, researchers examined organic residues left on 58 pottery fragments recovered from 13 archaeological sites, using a combination of microscopic analysis and chemical testing to identify plant tissue and other food remains. Most studies rely on fatty residues preserved in pottery, a method that is limited as it mainly detects animal products.
Under the microscope, in addition to traces of grasses, legumes, berries, and leafy greens, the residues contained underground plant parts such as roots and tubers.
Chemical testing of the same residues showed that fish and other aquatic foods were usually the dominant ingredient in these dishes. Rather than replacing fish, plants appear to have been added to meals built to complement the aquatic resources.
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Plants Played a Bigger Role Than Expected
The plant remains point to early cooks not simply throwing whatever vegetation was available into their pots. Instead, certain species and particular plant parts were repeatedly selected and combined with specific animal ingredients.
Some of these combinations varied by region, likely reflecting both local resources and cultural practices. In some areas, cooks used plants from the Amaranthaceae family — a group that includes species related to beets and whose role in prehistoric diets has long been debated among researchers.
“I was very happy to identify plant tissues and seeds belonging to the Amaranthaceae family as their human consumption has been long debated in Archaeobotany. The presence of these as part of food residues is the first direct evidence of their consumption and of their importance in past people’s diets,” Carretero added.
Another surprise came when the team discovered guelder rose, a toxic berry that appeared repeatedly.
“The most surprising aspect of the plants was the widespread presence of guelder rose berries. These berries are toxic if consumed raw and taste quite unpleasant even when processed and cooked. It is clear these communities were choosing to process these berries in ceramic vessels for a reason,” Carretero shared with Discover.
Ancient Pots Reveal Shared Cooking Traditions
The findings also hint that cooking traditions may have been linked to pottery traditions themselves. The researchers found that vessels made using different manufacturing techniques were often used to prepare different types of foods, suggesting that culinary habits may have been shaped not only by local ingredients but also by shared practices surrounding pottery-making.
The residues also help clarify the purpose of early European pottery. Rather than serving mainly to process fish oils or other materials, the remains preserved show that they were used to cook meals.
For researchers, the charred food traces clinging to these ancient pots offer a direct glimpse of how people prepared and combined ingredients thousands of years ago.
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