{"id":2363,"date":"2014-07-16T14:38:47","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T19:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=2363"},"modified":"2014-07-16T14:56:20","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T19:56:20","slug":"dental-plaque-reveals-ancient-human-diets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/dental-plaque-reveals-ancient-human-diets\/","title":{"rendered":"Dental plaque reveals ancient human diets"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2354\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Sudanese-skulls.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2354\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2354\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Sudanese-skulls.jpg\" alt=\"The grave of a young male at the multi-preiod burial site in Al Khiday, Sudan. By analysing dental plaque from the teeth of these skeletons, researchers have gained insight into ancient human diets. Photo credit: Donatella Usai\/Centro Studi Sudanesi and Sub-Sahariani (CSSeS).\" width=\"350\" height=\"263\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Sudanese-skulls.jpg 350w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Sudanese-skulls-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2354\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The grave of a young male at the multi-preiod burial site in Al Khiday, Sudan. By analysing dental plaque from the teeth of these skeletons, researchers have gained insight into ancient human diets. Photo credit: Donatella Usai\/Centro Studi Sudanesi and Sub-Sahariani (CSSeS).<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Dental plaque from ancient human burial sites in Sudan has provided clues as to what humans ate nearly 10,000 years ago. <\/span> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">Chemical analysis of the plaque found specific substances &#8211; called terpenoids &#8211; that are unique to a plant called purple nut sedge. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">While considered a weed today, the analysis indicates it was an important source of carbohydrates and that these pre-agricultural people were well versed in the uses of plants in their area. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The analysis also showed evidence for the use of fire or smoke to cook or preserve food.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.plosone.org\/article\/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0100808\" target=\"_blank\">Original research paper<\/a><\/span>\u00a0published in the journal\u00a0<em>PLoS ONE<\/em><em>\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<strong>July 16, 2014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Karen Hardy, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, Spain<\/span><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dental plaque from ancient human burial sites in Sudan has provided clues as to what humans ate nearly 10,000 years ago. Chemical analysis of the plaque found specific substances &#8211; called terpenoids &#8211; that are unique to a plant called purple nut sedge. While considered a weed today, the analysis indicates it was an important [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1851,1647,1934,650],"class_list":["post-2363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-anthropology","tag-human-behaviour","tag-human-history","tag-nutrition"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Sudanese-skulls.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-C7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2363"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2376,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363\/revisions\/2376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}