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By Robbert van der Linde
January 24, 2024 at 1:37 p.m. Update: a day ago
According to Swedish scientists, hunter-gatherers were chewing “chewing gum” almost ten thousand years ago. The chewed remains reveal a lot about how Stone Age people ate and cared for their teeth.
The chewing gum is made of pitch from the bark of a birch tree. The pieces show clear tooth marks. The gum was probably used as a type of glue to make tools and weapons.
Archaeologists found the chewed pieces north of the Swedish city of Gothenburg thirty years ago. Skeletons were also found nearby. They are around 9,700 years old. The teeth of some skeletons match the impressions on the gum.
Both men and women chewed pieces of bark, says lead researcher Anders Götherström Scientific reports. The DNA found indicates that it was mostly teenagers who chewed it.
“Perhaps people also chewed the bark because they liked it or because they thought it had medicinal powers,” says Götherström.
Chewing gum also shows dental problems
Thanks to the DNA left on the chewing gum, scientists can learn a lot about what and how people ate in the Late Stone Age. The scientists found that people at that time ate deer, trout, ducks, foxes, apples and hazelnuts, among other things.
Chewing gum also shows that people sometimes struggled with dental problems. For example, a young girl suffered from severe gum disease, as evidenced by the number of bacteria on a piece she had chewed.
Image: Verner Alexandersen/Stockholm University/AFP/Getty Images
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