Earliest fermented food

Based on chemical analyses of pottery shards dating to the seventh millennium BCE, scientists have long believed that fermentation (as a means of preserving food) originated in China, where rice, honey and fruit were fermented into an alcoholic beverage - the oldest of its kind on record. However, the recent discovery of a large deposit of fish bones in Blekinge, Sweden, upended that theory. This archaeological find provides definitive evidence of the intentional preservation of food by fermentation practices dating back to 7200 BCE, over 9,200 years ago.

Archaeologists dated the discovery of 200,000 fish bones in the south-western province of Blekinge to 7200 BCE. It's estimated that this amount of bones would constitute around 60 tonnes (66 US tons) of fish. The discovery is remarkable because fish bones are so fine that they usually disintegrate. But the fish had been carefully coated with seal fat and wrapped in sealskin before being buried in a pit to ferment, proof of an early method of cold-climate food preservation. To jumpstart the fermentation, the fish was first layered with acidic pine bark before being packed into the sealskin pouches.

Researcher Adam Boethius of Lund University published the findings in the February 2016 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science. The evidence suggests that Sweden’s semi-nomadic population was more advanced in its culinary practices than has previously been assumed.