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Culinary Time Travel: Bronze Cauldrons Unlock Ancient Caucasian Diets
Dishes made from deer, cows, aurochs, and buffaloes were cooked by the inhabitants of the Caucasus over 5,000 years ago in bronze cauldrons. This was revealed by analyses of protein preserved on the vessel walls.
In recent years, archaeologists have increasingly sought the assistance of experts from other fields. For the purpose of studying the distant past, not only genetic analyses but also chemical analyses are used. This was also the case with the recent analysis of bronze cauldrons from the Caucasus region. All of these cauldrons come from burial sites dating back over 5,000 years.
Deciphering diets from prehistory is a significant challenge.
Archaeologists often have to speculate about the purpose of the objects they discover and what the lives of ancient people looked like. This challenge arises from the fact that they often study very old burial sites or settlements. Writing was not known during these periods. Additionally, even when writing began to spread in the Near East from the 3rd millennium BC, descriptions of the diets of that time were rare.
This means that when it comes to what was consumed in the past, we have very limited and circumstantial information. This was the problem faced by…
