The Cellar - August 20, 2007: Oldest gum

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August 20, 2007: Oldest gum

http://cellar.org/2007/neato.gif

It's Neatorama Collaboration Monday!

http://cellar.org/2007/oldestgum.jpg

From the Guardian via Spluch comes this item: a 5,000 year old piece of chewing gum, found by a British archeology student.

The gum is made from birch bark tar, and the reason they think it's gum is that it has a big ol' human tooth print in it. Kinda weak, but that's how archaeologists think isn't it?

Also, it was stuck to the bottom of a prehistoric theater seat.

Future archaeologists will determine that pen caps are the gum of the year 2000, designed to be colorful and long-lasting and as flavorful as regular gum after use.

Quote:

Trevor Brown, her tutor at the University of Derby, said: "Birch bark tar contains phenols, which are antiseptic compounds. It is generally believed that Neolithic people found that by chewing this stuff if they had gum infections it helped to treat the condition."

Sini Annala, from the Kierikki Centre, said: "The actual material is some kind of tar, that was made by heating birch bark. After the tar was made ... it was boiled, and when it cooled, it became solid. "When it was heated again, it became softer, and it was used as some kind of chewing gum."

Obviously prehistoric man was much more intelligent than we moderns, able to work out all sorts of medicine and a complicated manufacturing process. Unfortunately they were unable to write any of this down and so their knowledge was lost to the ages. Who knows, maybe birch tar gum is the secret to curing cancer. Break me off a piece and boil and cool and reheat it, won't you? Mmm tasty.

Be sure to visit Neatorama for more neato items all the time!

Violet Beauregard is going to be so pissed.

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor over 5,000 years?

I bet this was the early equivalent for duct tape too.

Ya know.... it could be a boogey.

Coincided with the discovery of the oldest known school desk.

I heard an interview with the student who found this on the way home from work tonight. The interviewer had already thought of most of these jokes.

Its actually a human brain. You couldn't eat it, just chew because people were thick blokes back then.

looks like an old cat turd.

this may be the ugliest picture of the day i remember seeing. Not that there haven't been uglier things....just that this bit of ....matter...is about as ..unpicturesque as it gets. I mean.....even really exceptionally ugly things that are pictures of the day because of their ugliness have a certain allure based in that selfsame nastiness. beautifully ugly....like those dogs. but this? it's a little piece of shit lying on some gravel.

DO OVER!

lumberjim
Looks like an old cat turd. ^^^^:p :p :D

Wasn't birch bark used as a pain killer at some time during human history? Is it possible someone had a tooth ache and was chewing on it for relief?

Actually, it was always a rock. The tooth mark was made by a member the tribe of homo nodentus, or the toothless ones, who died out from their custom of eating rocks.

If I accidentally swallow this, will it join the big pile of gum in my stomach and block up my stomach and make me dead? :yeldead: