Some of the nut shells found during an excavation above Staffin Bay [©UHI]
Posted on 10/25/2015 12:19:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The remains of hazelnuts eaten by some of Skye's earliest inhabitants were found at a dig on the island, archaeologists have revealed.
Hazelnuts were a favourite snack of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, according to archaeologists at the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI).
The shells found at an excavation above Staffin Bay could be 8,000-years-old.
UHI carried out the dig along with Staffin Community Trust, school children and volunteers.
Dan Lee, lifelong learning and outreach archaeologist at UHI, said: "We have found lots of fragments of charred hazelnut shells in the lower soil samples.
"They are the ideal thing to date as they have a short life span and were a Mesolithic favourite.
"There is so much material in the samples we took that we will not be able to process them all with the current budget, but all is pointing to lots of potential to go back for another phase and include them in that."
He added: "We have what we need for now, to allow us to date the Mesolithic activity at the site."
Other finds made at the five-day dig included flints and a piece of bone possibly handcrafted into shape for use as a toggle or bead.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Some of the nut shells found during an excavation above Staffin Bay [©UHI]
They were Picty eaters.
Like me, they would have been Nutella lovers.
I wonder how far they spread?
If they intentionally lived on top of glaciers, their culture must havve been Masolithic.
Indeed!
I was thinking it must’ve been cold there 8,000 years closer to the last ice age.
Aye, be a Latte for my Lassie
I’ve met Hazel.
She has no nuts.
Dr Truance noted “The peterdown shards called so by the fact the clay glaze was first discovered at the Peterdown excavations of 1847, were often covered with a brownish superglaze. When submitted to modern spectra-graphic analysis, the super-glaze substance was shown to be chemically identical to nutella. It is now well known that the hazelnut goo has been a human staple for at least 8,000 years.”
PS: Nutella gives me heartburn
They look like filberts to me.
The only use I know for hazelnut is as a flavoring for coffee by the hoity toity types.
Therefore, the stone-agers at Sky were hoity toity coffee drinkers.
This would also explain the desire to develop the herding of cows. Gotta have flavored creams to go with that hazelnutted coffee.
They had a Starbucks back then?
Pre-deluvian?
My first thought was nutella, too. Mmmmm, love it as frosting on the middle layers of chocolate cake.
Just another name.
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