Random Oldest Foods Ever Discovered By Archaeologists (12 items)

• 

  (#6) 2,000-Year-Old Pickled Fish

  Around 2,000 years ago, a ship sunk in the Mediterranean on its way from Italy to Spain. The hull was filled with sealed glass jars containing foods like grain, olive oil, and pickled fish. Archaeologists believe the foods were going to be traded in Spain for other goods.
• 

  (#2) Bog Butter

  One Irish butter farmer from 3,000 years ago buried his cache of butter in a bog – and then forgot about it. The oldest example of bog butter dates back 5,000 years, and nearly 300 different chunks of bog butter have been dragged from the peat. 

  Many are baffled as to why farmers would throw their butter into a bog. Butter was a valuable commodity – some people even used it to pay taxes. As such, hiding butter in a bog was the ancient equivalent of hiding money in a mattress. Ireland even considers bog butter to be a national treasure.
• 

  (#4) 1,700-Year-Old Bottle Of Roman Tomb Wine

  The oldest unopened bottle of wine is almost 1,700 years old and comes from a Roman tomb near Speyer, Germany. The bottle was discovered during the excavation of a Roman nobleman’s tomb that dates between 325 and 359 CE. Following its discovery, the unopened bottle was placed in the Historical Museum of the Palatinate in Speyer.

  The ancient wine bottle survived the fall of Rome, the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, and several major wars, all while remaining intact. A combination of olive oil poured in the bottle and a thick wax seal preserved the contents. As for the wine’s taste, wine professor Monika Christmann warns, “it would not bring joy to the palate.”
• 

  (#9) 140-Year-Old Toxic Victorian Beer

  In February 2020, a cache of 600 beer bottles was discovered below the staircase of what was once a Victorian brewery in Leeds, England. The bottles were found neatly stacked in the ancient remains of the Scarborough Castle Inn, which was part of Tetley's Brewery (established in 1822). According to Archaeological Services WYAS, the group responsible for the find, many of the bottles still contained liquid and were sent to a lab for analysis.

  At first, the bottles' contents were thought to be ginger beer, but the liquid was later confirmed to not only be alcoholic (at 3% alcohol by volume) but also disturbingly toxic. The beer contained a high volume of lead, at 0.13 mg/l, which is well above the safe level of 0.01 mg/l recommended by the World Health Organization. On its Facebook page, Archaelogical Services WYAS notes that the high level of lead may be due to contamination from water being transported through lead pipes. 

  David Williams, senior project manager at Archaeological Services WYAS, told The Drinks Business that the bottles probably date to the late 19th century, “perhaps the 1880s.”
• 

  (#7) 4,000-Year-Old Noodles

  Archaeologists found a 4,000-year-old bowl of noodles in China. The long, yellow noodles were preserved inside an overturned bowl buried under 10 feet of dirt. The noodles were likely preserved after an ancient earthquake flooded the Yellow River. The flood interrupted one person's meal, preserving the noodles in a vacuum between the sediment and the bowl.
• 

  (#11) 7,000-Year-Old Popcorn

  In 2012, archaeologists produced a study that proved that Peruvians were making popcorn as early as 6,700 years ago. Ancient Peruvians likely made popcorn by wrapping a cob and resting it on coals until the kernels popped, roasting the corn directly over flame, or cooking the cob in an oven. 

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking