Member-only story
Algae in the European Diet: Insights from Prehistoric to Medieval Times
Recent studies have shown that our European ancestors had a diet based on seaweed and aquatic plants. We were consuming algae much earlier than people in the Far East.
Seaweed and aquatic plants may have been an important source of food in Europe during the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. This is the conclusion of the latest research published in “Nature Communications.” Furthermore, researchers claim that such a diet could have been common even into the early Middle Ages. Historical sources indicate that seaweed was harvested and consumed in Iceland and Ireland as late as the 10th century.
European Tradition of Eating Algae
“Although various types of seaweed are consumed today, including in Asia, archaeological evidence of seaweed and freshwater plant consumption in Europe is limited. During the Neolithic period, agriculture spread throughout Europe, and food of marine origin was considered insignificant. It was previously suggested that seaweed was used as animal feed or fertilizer during that time,” wrote the lead authors of the study, Stephen Buckley from the University of York and Karen Hardy from the University of Glasgow.
In Japan, the consumption of seaweed such as wakame and nori is a staple of the diet. Studies…
