Veget Hist Archaeobot (2016) 25:443–457 DOI 10.1007/s00334-016-0563-1
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Acorn cake during the Holocene: experimental reconstruction of its preparation in the western Pyrenees, Iberia Miren Ayerdi1 • Amaya Echazarreta-Gallego1 • Sara de Francisco-Rodrı´guez2 Hugo H. Herna´ndez1 • Izaskun Sarasketa-Gartzia1
•
Received: 1 July 2015 / Accepted: 3 March 2016 / Published online: 12 March 2016 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016
Abstract In many agricultural and hunter-gatherer communities, edible wild plants are still a relevant food source, although their use has been, in many cases, undervalued. In this sense, acorns have been known as a foodstuff in written sources since antiquity, as well as from scientific analyses in archaeobotany and ethnobotany. We have tried to reconstruct the chaıˆne ope´ratoire in the preparation of acorn cake, with experiments using materials similar to those potentially used in the western Pyrenees in the past. Furthermore, we have considered some ethnographic data which are available for this area. The results show that the treatment of pre-selected acorns by raw-roasting and
Communicated by C. C. Bakels.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00334-016-0563-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. & Hugo H. Herna´ndez
[email protected] Miren Ayerdi
[email protected] Amaya Echazarreta-Gallego
[email protected] Sara de Francisco-Rodrı´guez
[email protected] Izaskun Sarasketa-Gartzia
[email protected] 1
Geography, Prehistory and Archaeology Department, University of the Basque Country, C/Toma´s y Valiente, s/n, 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
2
Prehistory, Archaeology, Social Anthropology and Historiographical Sciences and Techniques Department, University of Valladolid, Plaza del Campus Universitario, s/n, 47011 Valladolid, Spain
leaching is feasible and we emphasise their nutritional value. The results of the experiments improved considerably with the use of pottery and optimal storage conditions. In addition, several by-products useful for other daily tasks were generated which may have been used as well in the past. Keywords Acorn processing Experimental archaeology Quercus Ethnobotany Prehistory
Introduction Edible wild plants are still used by many agricultural and hunter-gatherer communities. Their use in agrarian societies is often secondary, so their importance in human diet has been undervalued in many cases (Bharucha and Pretty 2010; Heywood 2011). Many researchers suggest that edible wild plants have been consumed all around the world as a complement to cultivated plants and as an additional source of nutrients, especially during times of famine (Schulz and Johnson 1980; Liu et al. 2011; Menendez-Baceta et al. 2012). Generally, economic self-sufficiency, practised in many European rural areas since the introduction of agriculture, is manifested through a distinctive and dominant cultivation of crops. However, this self-sufficiency is also characterized by a strong tendency to gather plants from the wild and to hunt, influenced by regional differences (Iglesias Gil 1999). In this sense, ethnographic studies of human consumption of acorns indicate minimal consumption until the 20th century, with a rapid decline up to the present day (Pardo-de-Santayana et al. 2006; Mason and Nesbitt 2009; Menendez-Baceta et al. 2012; Claudia 2013; Garcia Gomez and Pereira Sieso 2013). In fact, acorns have
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been relegated to the rural environment, animal fodder and rural festivities with strong traditional character. More recently, they were consumed in various ways, for example, roasted acorns were used as a coffee substitute in the two world wars, known as Ersatzkaffee (Belter 1920). Furthermore, acorns are still an important ingredient in Korean cuisine, and they are used in some traditional recipes like dotorimuk, which is an edible jelly, and dotori guksu, a kind of noodles made with acorn flour (Han’guk 2014). Therefore, the question is: what has caused such an under-representation of human acorn consumption in the present and past? This phenomenon is not unique, for worldwide there are plants that are not used any more and knowledge about their nutritional value and preparation as food is present only in the memory of the oldest people (Hadjichambis et al. 2008; Pardo-de-Santayana et al. 2010) and threatened by oblivion, often voluntarily. Possible reasons for the abandonment of consumption of a particular food might be if it came to be considered old-fashioned, for outsiders or a rural custom (Cruz-Garcia 2006; Perez 20062007). Also, the decline in acorn consumption could be due to the introduction of plant foods whose cultivation and processing produced higher output, for example at the expense of acorns of Quercus robur and Q. petraea in northwest Iberia (Pardo-de-Santayana et al. 2006). In any case, the establishment of larger settlements and eventually towns would have reduced the opportunities to take advantage of wild fruits or herbs (Rodrigo Mora 2009). Ethnographic studies mention the use of such wild plants in periods of scarcity, with the social stigmatization of their consumption in good times (Menendez-Baceta et al. 2012). Recently, organic and fair trade agriculture has started to value acorns again, as shown by various initiatives in Europe and the USA. This illustrates the current mental change about the consumption of acorns and other wild food resources, from a stigmatized foodstuff to an appreciated one in ecological and organic markets. Historical sources frequently mention acorn consumption. According to Herodotus (c. 430 BC), acorns were already consumed around 500 BC (Gonzalez Carballo 1994). Pliny the Elder (c. AD 77) wrote that they constituted the main food resource of many nations, roasted in ashes to remove bitterness (Einaudi 1984); Strabo (c. AD 9), referring to the pre-Roman populations of northern Hispania, asserted that they fed themselves for three quarters of the year upon dried acorns, crushed and ground to make bread (Garcı´a Blanco and Garcı´a Ramo´n 1991). Apparently, acorns were even exported to Rome during times of famine according to Prudentius in AD 403 (Harrison 1935). There is also classical documentation for their medicinal use, as in the remedies of Dioscorides (c. AD 65) (Beck 2005). During the Middle Ages acorns were part of the diet, as supported
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by the iconography of some Romanesque monuments, like the wall paintings of the Hermitage of San Pelayo de Perancazas (Palencia, 11th century), or their attested use in the Hispanic Muslim medicinal treatises of Ibn al-Wafid (c. 1041), Avenzoar (c. 1118) or Ibn Butlaˆn c. 1239 (Alvarez 1980; Garcia Sanchez 1994; Cantimpre 1999). In the Relaciones topogra´ficas de los pueblos de Espan˜a, hechas de orden de Felipe II of 1578, it is recorded that the neighbours of Las Mesas (Cuenca) praised a Quercus ilex (holm oak) wood that gave them a significant part of their diet, especially in bad harvest years (Paez de Castro et al. 1994). From the modern age, there are fewer records of human consumption of acorns in the Iberian Peninsula, from around AD 1513 (Alonso de Herrera and Terron 1998), 1542 (Lobera de Avila 1996) and 1722 (Agusti 2001). The use of acorns in all of these references are as varied as their preparation, usually preferring the whole acorn or the parenchyma, in order to avoid diarrhoea or poisoning, haemorrhages and wounds, the leaking of urine, poor digestion or even kidney stones. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, we find diets with a large proportion of acorns and chestnuts, usually in rural areas of Asturias, the Sayago (Zamora), the region of Maestrazgo (Castello´n and Teruel) or Madrid (Tardio et al. 2004; Pardo-de-Santayana et al. 2006; Garcia Gomez 2009). This reinforces the idea that they also played an important role in human subsistence in prehistory, at least in certain regions (MenendezBaceta et al. 2012). Before the establishment of modern production economies in our study area, oaks could have been used for various purposes such as acorns for food, timber for building, firewood, for making rope or extracting tannin, as they were in some other areas (Salkova et al. 2011). Acorns have a high energy content ranging between 265 and 520 calories per 100 g, nutritionally comparable with cereals, providing carbohydrates, fibres and fats (Wright 1994; USDA 2015). In addition, acorns contain proteins, amino acids and vitamins, mainly A and C. However, it is difficult to determine the significance of past acorn consumption with certainty due, largely, to their poor fossil record. At most archaeological sites where acorns have been found, the only remains are those that have been charred, either accidentally or intentionally, as part of a production process (Zapata et al. 2008), so it is difficult to estimate their role in consumption. Various methods of preparing acorns have been proposed on the basis of experimental archaeology, ethnographic and historical data, as bread, soup or porridge (Salkova et al. 2011). Researchers agree on the need to remove the tannic acid present in acorns, which, beside giving a characteristic bitter taste, can also be toxic for humans (Deshpande et al. 1984) and also for certain mammalian herbivores (Mole and Waterman 1987).
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Therefore the objectives of this study are to reconstruct the sequence of processes of acorn preparation for human consumption in the area of the western Pyrenees based on: 1.
2.
3.
4.
Ethnographic investigation of current talo preparation in a rural area where this tradition still continues, in the Arratia valley, Bizkaia. Talo is a traditional food similar to a cake, typical of the Basque Country, made from flour and water, cooked on a griddle and accompanied by other foods, usually with meat. Reconstruction of acorn cake preparation through experiments, using techniques based on the traditional ways in the western Pyrenees and adapted to reproduce the process of flour milling and acorn cake making as faithfully as possible. Timing of different phases of the experiments to control baking times and also the flavour of the resulting cakes. Recognition of potentially useful by-products deriving from the processing of acorns.
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Ghirardini et al. (2007) and Menendez-Baceta et al. (2012). The people interviewed were of both genders, in various jobs, such as farmer, business owner, housewife, etc., but all of them associated the consumption of talos with traditional celebrations in which it is usual to show people preparing and eating them. Experimental data The following materials have been used, based on archaeological finds and ethnographical observations (Fig. 2; Alday et al. 2014): –
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Materials and methods
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Archaeobotanical and archaeological data Due to the continuity of consumption and use of acorns as a resource over time and also owing to the archaeobotanical studies carried out by Zapata (2000, 2002) and Zapata et al. (2008), the western Pyrenees has been selected as the geographic area for this study. We have focused on the transition from the end of the Pleistocene to the Holocene in this region, in order to emphasize the importance of the collection of wild resources both in hunter-gatherer and farming societies and to compare the results with records from other regions.
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4 kg of Q. ilex ssp. ilex acorns from Hinojosa del Duque, Co´rdoba. The acorns were obtained from a farm because they were not available from a closer location, due to the season. For this reason, the acorns used for the experiments do not come from the studied area, even though they are of the same subspecies, which can be found growing naturally on the Cantabrian coast and in Catalonia. Two ceramic wheel-made plates. A heat resistant plate was also used to prevent fractures and loss of materials. A piece of quartz sandstone from the vicinity of the Ullı´barri-Gamboa reservoir in Araba for the base of the mill. An ophite (serpentine) edged handstone from a ridge of limestone at Barrika, Bizkaia, was used for the preparation of the surface of the grinding mill through abrasion. For the surface on which the acorns were roasted, a piece of sandstone from the banks of the river Ibaizabal, Galdakao, Bizkaia, was used. A tanned skin of a lamb was used to steady the base of the mill during grinding, as well as to avoid loss of flour. Rustic string and cellulose cloth for filtration and leaching of the flour.
Ethnographic data The written records of acorn consumption in the studied area have been collected and some inhabitants of the Arratia valley, Bizkaia, were interviewed (Fig. 1). Talo is still made there, following a very similar technique described in various sources. Arratia valley is located in the south of Bizkaia (Basque Country), bordering with Araba (Basque Country) and formed of 15 municipalities and with around 30,000 inhabitants. This area is characterised by being a conglomerate of small and medium-sized traditional villages. Near to one of them, by Bedia, we had the chance in 2014 to interview some inhabitants of the Bizkarra family; the interview was informal, with specific questions about acorns. Ethnographic sampling techniques are based on
Conducting the experiment Around 2 kg acorns were pre-selected for roasting, to facilitate the peeling for the subsequent grinding. Two techniques were used to roast the acorns, either directly on a piece of sandstone or on a heat resistant plate (Fig. 3a). In both cases, the roasting was done by covering the acorns with another ceramic plate to prevent them from leaping when heated, as well as to reduce cooking times. The reliability of the experiment is therefore not valid for preceramic societies. Then the acorns were manually peeled after roasting, yielding about 700 g of peelings (Fig. 4) and milled into flour (Fig. 3c) with a manual mill, previously rubbed to
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Fig. 1 Map of the Basque Country showing ethnographic locations where evidence of acorn consumption by humans was found (Perez 2006– 2007; Menendez-Baceta et al. 2012)
increase its active surface, with the help of water as sliding material (Fig. 3b). We obtained around 1.3 kg of acorn flour. Then 1 kg of it was separated for a subsequent leaching process to remove tannic acids, using running water filtration (Gifford 1936; Driver 1952; Hole 1978, 1979; Younker 1995; Katz 2012, pp. 310–311). The remaining 300 g were kneaded without a previous leaching process, in order to get two talos, one of which was baked on the sandstone and the other on a ceramic plate (Fig. 3d). The other batch of acorn flour was leached several times, removing each time a filtered portion of the liquid to find out how many leachings are needed to eliminate the bitter taste. This cumulative process gave five samples from the leachings (L1–L5) of different weights, altogether about 1 kg: L1 = 270 g, L2 = 250 g, L3 = 190 g, L4 = 200 g, L5 = 90 g. The leaching procedure (Fig. 3f) took place on four consecutive days, during which the material was stored in a dry environment but without refrigeration.
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After leaching the flour, the five portions were also kneaded and baked into cakes. A kind of ‘‘bread’’ or ‘‘cake’’ (talo) of acorn flour was made using the two different kinds of flour, either directly after milling or after repeated steps of leaching.
Results Archaeology and archaeobotany Since the beginning of the Holocene in the Near East, a relationship has been noticed in the pollen record between cereal pollen and woodland genera which are abundant in nature, such as Quercus or Pistacia (Bottema 1992). Acorns have been found at C ¸ atal Hu¨yu¨ck, Jarmo, Nahal Hemar and Beidha, associated with crop storage (Braidwood and Howe 1960; Helbæk 1966). There is further evidence from acorn remains found as part of the fuel.
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Fig. 2 Materials used for the experiments. a 2 kg of Quercus ilex ssp. ilex acorns from Hinojosa del Duque, Co´rdoba; b limestone handstone from Barrika, Bizkaia; c refractory plate; d rustic string; e quartz sandstone mill base from Ullı´barri-Gamboa, Araba; f cellulose; g ophite (serpentine) boulder for grinding the mill base, from Barrika, Bizkaia; h two potter’s wheel made plates; i piece of sandstone for cooking upon, from river Ibaizabal, Galdakao, Bizkaia; j lambskin leather
Other Mediterranean finds have come from early Neolithic layers in Sesklo, Nea Nikomedia (Renfrew 1973), Grotta dell’Uzzo (Costantini 1989), Passo di Corvo, Pienza and Coveta de l’Or (Zohary and Hopf 1993). With a strong and diverse presence in the Iberian Peninsula, Quercus is also one of the most important Holocene tree genera (Table 1). That would imply that acorns were available, even though they have some drawbacks for human consumption, such as a high concentration of tannins, bitterness, etc. Cotyledons of acorns have been found in several prehistoric sites in the western Pyrenees, especially in more recent ones (Table 2; Fig. 5; Zapata 2000). Archaeobotanical studies carried out in the study area are scarce. Among these, acorn cotyledons and fragments were only found at Santa Catalina and Lumentxa (Lekeitio, Bizkaia), Kanpanoste Goikoa (Virgala, Araba) and Kobaederra (Kortezubi, Bizkaia) (Table 2; Zapata 1997, 2002; Cubero 1997; Zapata and Pen˜a-Chocarro 2005; Pen˜a-Chocarro et al. 2005; Berganza et al. 2012; Ruiz Alonso et al. 2014). A review of analyses of plant macroremains covering the Mesolithic and Neolithic in the Basque-Cantabrican basin has shown that Corylus sp. (hazelnut), which was probably collected from the wild, was more abundant than acorns. This may be related to the spread of hazel in the Holocene, together with the expansion of the mixed deciduous woodland, or it may be connected to preservation (taphonomy). Acorns and hazelnuts have been consumed due to their high nutritional value and were also used as fuel (Iriarte-Chiapusso et al. 2007/2008).
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The remains associated with the evidence of these roasted hazelnuts and acorns are from 14,000–4,000 cal BP, with archaeological assemblages from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Chalcolithic. Pottery associated with the archaeological acorns consists of simple handmade types of medium thickness. These remains were highly fragmented, but the most interesting patterns for our experiments corresponded to conical bowls and similar types with flat bottoms and large apertures, common to all Neolithic cultures in the area (Apella´niz 1973; Vegas 1978; Alday 1998). Included is a fragment of lip bevel plate from Lumentxa (Apella´niz 1973). Among the stone implements which have been found, there were several river boulders, slabs and flat pieces. These included limestone and sandstone with silica/clay embedded materials, which were generally available in the environments of the sites. Some of the pieces showed intensively polished smooth and concave surfaces, which demonstrated the continued use of these stone tools in the processing of food from plants (Apella´niz 1973, Alday 1998). Other sites in the area, like Kanpanoste Goikoa, Atxoste, Los Husos I or La Llosa, show similar evidence (Apellaniz 1974; Vegas 1978; Barandiaran 2004; Alday et al. 2014). Also, the functional study of an early Neolithic river boulder in Zatoya, a large ophite stone tool with a hollow, showed that it was probably used for processing wild plant material, for example for crushing and grinding acorns (Laborda Martı´nez 2013). This can be associated with other evidence from the eastern Pyrenees (Martı´nezMoreno et al. 2006; Roda Gilabert et al. 2013) and with similar stones with the same function which are known from ethnography, like nut-cracking stones (Gould et al. 1971, De Beaune 1989). These would have been used as multi-purpose implements for the cracking and the grinding of plant products. Ethnographic results In the case of the Basque Country we find references from scholars of the 20th century such as T. Aranzadi, who was reluctant to say that Basque people had consumed acorns. J. M. Barandiaran had reservations about this, since the consumption of acorns by humans in the past had not been properly studied then (Barandiaran and Manterola 1990; Perez 2006–2007, p. 106). However, according to our collected data, the consumption of acorns in the Basque Country is prominent (Fig. 1; Table 3). Ethnographic data from our interviews of people in the Arratia valley, Bizkaia, have provided valuable information about the various preparation stages of acorn cake which we could use in the experimental reconstruction. According to the interviews, the preparation of talos is the same in all the Basque Country with few differences
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Fig. 3 Phases of the present experiment: a roasting of acorns on 1, sandstone and 2, covered plate; b grinding of the mill base with a stone to prepare it; c grinding the acorns; d kneading the dough;
e baking unleached talo; f leaching process, using running water on acorn flour supported by cellulose cloth; g baking talo after leaching the acorn flour
transmitted by generations, including the substitution of acorn flour by maize flour (Zea mays). The preparation procedure is as follows: maize flour, previously industrially processed, is placed on a smooth surface in a shape like a volcano, into which previously boiled water is added and mixed until moist dough is obtained (ESM Fig. 1). Once the lump of dough is made, it is not necessary to let it stand in the case of maize, chestnut or acorn flour, because there is no component that can ferment and make it rise, as when making bread with wheat flour. The next step is to bake the dough lump on a metal utensil like a flat frying pan, known as a talopala, ‘‘talo shovel’’ (ESM Fig. 2). In addition to the making of talos, there are some related products; one of the most important is known as morokil, which is the result of adding any type of flour to boiled water or milk, to obtain a dish similar to mush or porridge. Talosopa are left-over talos, cut into pieces and added to
milk with sugar and/or cinnamon; these were widely consumed for breakfast in the countryside. Finally, there is artopile, which is similar to talos, with the difference that, once the mass is obtained, it is baked and cut up later. Thus, once cooked, it could be kept for longer. It has been particularly interesting to discover that the baking of talos ends up by placing them in the chimney wall of a hearth with low heat. This is reminiscent of older baking systems known from the Near East, where dough is pasted directly on the inner wall of the oven until it is baked. The final product is picked up by hand or with special implements (Gutierrez-Lloret 1990–1991; Parker 2011).
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Experimental results The plate system was much faster (8 min) and more efficient than the one with the stone (15 min) to roast about 40 acorns. This was due to the thickness of the sandstone,
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During the leaching of the acorn flour, two observations were made: –
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Fig. 4 Acorn seed coats from the experiment. These peelings could show how the acorn remains are found in archaeological contexts as a consequence of using acorns
because it took longer to heat it up and to pass the heat to the acorns than in the case of the dish. The same was the case for baking. The stone took more time to heat up comparing to pottery. On stone, it took 45 min to bake the talo, and yet it was not as well baked as the one on ceramics, which only took 20 min (Fig. 3e). This process showed that these steps were insufficient to get acorn cake which was free of bitterness, following the same lines proposed by Salkova et al. (2011), who proved it for cakes of acorn flour of Q. robur without leaching. Part of our final unleached product was baked on stone and part on ceramic, and was tested by five people, who all determined that the taste was bitter, earthy and unpleasant. It is possible that the impression of the testers was a consequence of cultural aspects of the taste, as they had never eaten acorn products before. Of the five leached samples, the L1 sample was discarded since, after 4 days of storage, it had deteriorated and was mildewed (ESM Fig. 3a). Sample L2, which had 3 days in storage after two leachings, also showed slight mildew, but after removing this, it was baked anyway, however judging by the smell, it was not suitable for consumption. Samples L3–5, with 3–5 leachings respectively, were in good condition and were baked into flat cakes (ESM Fig. 3). At this step, baking was done directly on a ceramic plate, which turned out to be more efficient than other methods. Each sample (L3–5) was baked individually, and tested later (Fig. 3g; ESM Fig. 3). The talos took around 15–20 min to be baked on the ceramic plate.
the resulting water leached from the acorn flour was turbid and in different shades of brown once it had settled. This was due to its enrichment with starch and sugar (glucose and sucrose) as well as tannic acids. during the process of settling, the container was tightly closed to prevent oxidation of the mixture. In an anaerobic environment with the presence of carbohydrates, fermentation is expected to occur. In the present experiments, digestion was butyric, by the action of the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum, transforming starch into acetone and other products by acetonebutanol-ethanol fermentation (Wilkins and Atiye 2012).
This is of great interest, since this solvent of proteins, together with the tannins, is traditionally used in tannery, by reusing the liquid for the processing of skin into leather. The talo baked from L3, after 2 days of storage, was the first sample for consumption, and it was tested by five people who judged that it had a slight taste of mildew, making it unpleasant. However the one from L4, with only 1 day of storage, was in perfect condition and it was tested by the same number of people, who said that the talo was no longer bitter. L5, leached only 16 h before, provided the same result.
Discussion The acorn remains found at archaeological sites can be isolated cotyledons, whole acorns with the cotyledons and even the pericarp layer or husk. Despite their size, these are usually not identified correctly or are stored along with wood charcoal, when remains are directly hand-picked in the field (Zapata et al. 2008). In the absence of the acorn cupule, it is impossible identify them closer than to the genus. If the fruits were consumed raw, boiled or pure´ed, the possibilities of preservation would be considerably reduced (Zapata 2000). According to McCorriston (1994), the scarcity of these remains can be explained by their brittleness or peeling prior to contact with fire. In addition, quantitative-comparative studies are complicated if we take into account that in some sites only a single remain has been found. This could be a consequence of preservation issues or a specific function of some of the deposits, more related to hunting. The experiment showed that the consumption of foods made from acorns is feasible, with a pleasant-tasting product, provided that the tannins that cause bitterness and toxicity are removed, as shown by ethnographic data from
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Table 1 Table of current species and subspecies of genus Quercus in Iberia (Alvarez 1980; Rivera-Nun˜ez and Obo´n de Castro 1991; Aizpuru et al. 1999; Lopez Gonzalez 2004; Johnson and More 2006;
Ortiz 2006; Pardo-de-Santayana et al. 2006; Perez 2006–2007; Rodrigo Mora 2009; Menendez-Baceta et al. 2012; Garcia Gomez and Pereira Sieso 2013)
Species
Distribution
Acorn consumption
Common uses
Quercus canariensis (roble andaluz)a
Northern Africa, Iberia
Consumed by humans; bitter taste
Ornamental; timber
Q. coccifera (chaparro)a
Mediterranean area
Unfit for human consumption; very bitter taste
Feeds pigs and goats when no larger oaks are in the environment
Q. faginea (quejigo)a
Western Mediterranean
Called nuez de agalla andalusı´ or ga´llara (referring mainly to oak galls) by Ibn al-Wafid (11th cent.), an ingredient of his pharmacopoeia
Cooperage; tool handles; human consumption as antidiuretic
Q. humilis (roble pubescente)a
Central and S Europe, Turkey, Crimea
No human consumption confirmed in Iberia
Ornamental; firewood; timber; tannery
Q. ilex (encina)a arteab
Mediterranean area
Sweet taste, acorns are the most consumed among the Quercus spp. in Iberia, in Basque language: kiskurra or uzkurrek (the latter includes acorns of other Quercus spp. and beechmast of Fagus sylvatica
Crushed, boiled or roasted as coffee, acorns are astringent and disinfectant. In the Basque area its preparation as flour for talos is known, coarse black bread or roasted raw
Q. lusitanica (quejigueta)a
Atlantic coast of Iberia
Mainly medicinal uses
Its galls are astringent, useful for the treatment of chronic dysentery, diarrhoea, passive haemorrhages, poisoning by strychnine, veratrine and other vegetable alkaloids
Q. orocantabrica (roble orocanta´brico)a
Cantabrian coast and scattered in the Sistema Ibe´rico mountains
No human consumption confirmed in Iberia
Ornamental; cooperage
Q. pauciradiata (roble canta´brico)a
Endemic species in province of Leo´n
Unfit for human consumption
No human use observed
Q. petraea (roble albar)a
Central, S and W Europe; W Asia; NE Iberia in central and Cuenca mountains in oldgrowth woods
Sweet or slightly bitter taste. Rejected for human consumption in several rural areas of Iberia because of its unpleasant taste
Medicinal use of its acorns
Q. pyrenaica (melojo)a
W Mediterranean; NW Iberia in oldgrowth woods
Thicker than other acorns. Bitter taste
Feeds mountain and pasture cattle. Its galls are used for firewood, dye and astringent. Its bark is used in tannery
Q. robur (roble comu´n)a
Europe and W Asia. NW Iberia in oldgrowth woods
Sweet or slightly bitter, in Basque language: kiskurra or uzkurrek, the latter includes acorns of other Quercus spp. and F. sylvatica. Rejected for human consumption in several rural areas for unpleasant taste, high content of tannins; known ethnographically—needs several detoxification procedures, some of them similar to those used to sweeten table olives
Timber; cooperage; firewood; ripe acorns are eaten by humans raw and dry, boiled, roasted or ground as flour (talos, ogi baltza). Its leaves and shoots are also used for chewing
aretxa/aratxab
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Subspecies of interest
Ssp. faginea (widespread throughout Iberia), ssp. broteroi (Atlantic coast of Iberia and N Africa)
Ssp. ilex (Cantabrian coast, Catalonia), ssp. ballota/ rotundifolia (widespread throughout the Iberian Peninsula)
Relict ssp. huguetiana/mas
Ssp. robur (it extends to the E edge of Galicia), ssp. broteroana (N Portugal, NW Spain), ssp. estremadurensis (N and central Portugal)
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Table 1 continued Species
Distribution
Acorn consumption
Common uses
Subspecies of interest
Q. suber (alcornoque mediterra´neo)a
W Mediterranean, S Iberia; It is managed for cork production
Very bitter taste
Cork production; feeds pigs; its acorns are eaten by nonmigratory and wintering wild animals
Ssp. breviculata, ssp. clavata, ssp. dolichocarpa, ssp. longicalyx, ssp. macrocarpa, ssp. microcarpa, ssp. racemosa, ssp. suboccultata
All species were present there during the early Holocene. Several species recently introduced into the Iberian Peninsula have been excluded. Software: QGis 2.10 Pisa a
Most common vernacular name in Spanish language
b
Most common vernacular name in Basque language
Table 2 Table of archaeological sites in the western Pyrenees with archaeobotanical studies dating to the Mesolithic and Neolithic (Zapata 1997, 2002; Cubero 1997; Zapata and Pen˜a-Chocarro 2005; Pen˜a-Chocarro et al. 2005; Berganza et al. 2012; Ruiz Alonso et al. 2014) Site
Location
Altitude (m a.s.l.)
Chronology
Archaeol. level
14
Description
Aizpea
Aribe (Navarra) Vı´rgala Mayor (Araba)
720
Mesolithic
–
–
No acorns
740
NeolithicChalcolithic
IIa
4,350 ± 60 (GrN-20267)
A hand-picked roasted acorn cotyledon: Level IIa/ Z3, sector 1.Z = 165–170. 12-9-92 N8166; other cultivated plant remains: Triticum sp. in Level II lower level; gathered plants: Corylus avellana (large number of fragments), Rosaceae and indet. fruit, Caryophyllaceae from Level III to IIa Neolithic/Chalcolithic
Oma (Bizkaia)
260
Kanpanoste Goikoa
Kobaederra
C age (BP)a
4,190 ± 100 (GrN-2273 8)
Neolithic
IV
5,630 ± 100 (UBAR-470) 5,375 ± 90 (AA29110)
Two fragments of acorn cotyledon were collected by flotation. Other macrofossil remains of cultivated plants: Hordeum vulgare, T. dicoccum, Cerealia, Setaria italica, Fabaceae; gathered plants: Corylus avellana, Rosaceae; wild plants: Poaceae, Rumex (Levels I–V)
Kukuma
Araia (Araba)
715
Epipalaeolithic
–
–
No acorns
Los Cascajos
Los Arcos (Navarra)
445
Early NeolithicRoman
–
–
No acorns
Lumentxa
Lekeitio (Bizkaia)
89
Late Neolithic
Base of Level II, layers 9 and 10
5,180 ± 70 (UA-12662)
Two hand-picked cotyledons, one cotyledon fragment by flotation. Also, Hordeum vulgare, Cerealia (cultivated), Malus sylvestris (gathered), Trifolium, Fabaceae and parenchymatous tissues have been found
5,095 ± 70 (UA-12663)
Mendandia
Saseta (Trevin˜o)
700
EpipalaeolithicMesolithic
–
–
No acorns
Pico Ramos
Muskiz (Bizkaia) Lekeitio (Bizkaia)
206
NeolithicChalcolithic Late Magdalenian
–
–
No acorns
II
11,155 ± 80 (UA-24652)
A roasted acorn cotyledon and a fragment were collected by flotation. It might be the most ancient acorn of northern Iberia. Its preservation indicates that acorns were processed with fire, near a hearth
Santa Catalina
20
12,700 ± 600 (I-15779) a
The radiocarbon dates correspond to the levels where the acorns were found
the area, such as from Munitibar, Arratia valley, Labeaga, Gorbeialdea, Ataun, among others. Despite the efforts made, the data relating to the collection of wild plants, especially during the Mesolithic, are
rare in this area (Iriarte-Chiapusso et al. 2007/2008). There is more evidence of hunting or collecting shellfish than of gathering edible plants, since hunting leaves more remains, both biological and as tools (Zapata 2002). The main
123
452
Veget Hist Archaeobot (2016) 25:443–457
Fig. 5 Map of Mesolithic and Neolithic archaeological sites in the western Pyrenees with plant macroremains (not including charcoal) studied. Sites with acorns are marked in red, sites without acorns in green. Software: QGis 2.10 Pisa
Table 3 Ethnographic data on the traditional means of acorn consumption in the western Pyrenees (Perez 2006-2007; Menendez-Baceta et al. 2012) Site
Primary product
Final product
Others
Lea Artibai valley: Munitibar (Bizkaia)
Kiskurra (acorns of Q. ilex ssp. ilex)
Cooked, roasted (Labeaga), or as flour (Munitibar) produced with a manual mill and mixed with other flour (for talo), or wheat (for black bread or ogi baliza)
Note that the name ‘‘black bread’’ can be associated with Sardinian Pan ‘Ispeli, also produced with acorns, and whose vernacular name refers to the same colouration of this foodstuff (Claudia 2013)
Hondarribia, Ernio mountain and Ataun (Gipuzkoa)
Acorns in the form of flour
talos
Mungia (Txorierri) and Great Bilbao (Bizkaia)
Acorns (mainly Q. robur)
Acorns for human consumption
Karrantza (Bizkaia)
Acorns
In the form of flour (Soscan˜o)
Navarre: La Ribiera and Lizarra/Estella Bizkaia Regio´n of Gorbeialdea
Acorns
Roasted, brown, raw or well ripened
Uzkurrek (acorns of Q. ilex ssp. ilex, Q. robur, Q. pyrenaica, nuts of F. sylvatica)
Acorns and beech nuts raw (ripened and dried), roasted or mashed into a sort of flour
Acorns
Raw or roasted in hot ashes or embers (according to oral communication)
´ lava Plains of A
difficulty in reconstructing the consumption of plants in the past lies in the shortage of archaeobotanical remains, since in our study area they are only preserved when carbonized.
123
In addition, the leaves and young shoots of Q. robur were used for chewing
The motivation for processing acorns on a fire could be related to their use when dried, prior to the removal of the shell and milling, or for preservation and storage. In fact,
Veget Hist Archaeobot (2016) 25:443–457
hearths and combustion structures are present at some of the mentioned sites, Kanpanoste Goikoa and Santa Catalina (Alday 1998; Ruiz Alonso et al. 2014). These hearths could have been an integral part of the proposed chaıˆne ope´ratoire, for the roasting of acorns in order to eliminate tannins for their immediate consumption, or for preservation; however it cannot be ruled out that acorn remains just represent firewood (Zapata 2000; Zapata et al. 2008; Cunningham 2011; Roda Gilabert et al. 2013). It should be noted that, during the Mesolithic, various structures for roasting hazelnuts and acorns have been found, especially pits, where they were also stored, as noted in several sites in the British Isles (Mithen and Score 2000; Mithen et al. 2001; Cunningham 2005; Spikins 2010). The consumption of acorns may have been underestimated as a result of their fragility, if they were consumed raw or if the de-husking was prior to contact with fire. This is related to the scarcity of archaeological data, especially for the first part of the Neolithic. However, we should reconsider the relevance that collection might have had, not only in prehistoric times but also in more recent periods. In central Europe, waterlogged archaeological sites with anaerobic preservation of remains have shown that acorns were not a secondary food after cereals (Jacomet et al. 2004). Other methods of studying ancient diets could be applied, like the one applied to the Mesolithic skeleton of Aizpea, which gave evidence of a vegetarian diet, although the procedures were not free of methodological problems (Barandiaran and Cava 2001). Others include the analysis of micro-residues in the mills (Alday et al. 2014), or the study of the dentition of a skeleton with a chronology from the late Bronze to early Iron Age from Urbiola, Navarre, which revealed acorn parenchyma (Juan-Treserras et al. 1997). It must be added that, during the first half of the Holocene, there was a greater variety of potentially useful resources in southwest Europe, compared to other more northerly areas (Zapata 2002). Therefore, wild plants must have played an important role in the early prehistoric subsistence of southwest Europe, since they would have been abundant there, easily collectible and storable. There are numerous sites in Iberia with acorn cotyledon remains together with wheat such as Nerja (Pellicer Catala´n 1962), Cueva de los Murcie´lagos (Vicent Zaragoza and Mun˜oz Amilibia 1969), La Sarsa (Lopez and Molero 1984) or Cova d’en Pau, Cueva 120 (Buxo´ and Capdevila 1987). Mas d’Azil has also provided acorn remains associated with other wild resources (Fleurentin et al. 2002). Another case can be found in Chaves, Bastara´s, Huesca, where silos in the ground related to the preservation of acorns and also used as containers for water have been found, where acorns could have been leached to eliminate the toxins, if the processing took place on a large scale (Zapata et al. 2008).
453
Regarding the ethnography of acorn consumption, there is evidence of it almost until the present day, as has been highlighted by this paper. However, as mentioned in some papers (Perez 2006–2007; Menendez-Baceta et al. 2012), a methodological approach would be necessary in order to reveal acorn consumption, since this has been stigmatized as something to be used only in times of shortage of basic products, and therefore, acorns have been associated with poverty and bad times. In this sense, the elderly people could tell us of the shortage of wheat in the north of Iberia which drove farmers to use other grains such as maize, but they also applied their traditional knowledge of the use of other foodstuffs such as Panicum/Setaria (millets), Medicago sativa (alfalfa), Secale cereale (rye), Triticum spelta (spelt), T. boeoticum/urartu/dicoccoides (wild wheats), acorns and Castanea sativa (chestnuts) for the same purpose. These cereals would have been used alone or as a complement to others of higher quality, in order to supplement the harvest. For the experimental approach, the main raw material, acorns, was obtained from a farm. That could be the reason for the appearance of acetone described above as a by-product of experimentation. This might be attributable to the contact of these acorns with domestic ruminant animals, possibly during their storage, since the bacteria that complete the transformation of starch into acetone can be found in the rumens of these animals (Church 1988). Another reason for the presence of these bacteria in the acorns could be their storage among grass fodder with low levels of sugar such as Medicago sativa (Buchanan-Smith 1990). Concerning the typology of pottery, we know the use of specific supports for baking bread in other regions (Gutierrez-Lloret 1990–1991). The impossibility of obtaining containers not made on a potter’s wheel forced us to use modern ceramic dishes, industrially made. However, in terms of roasting acorns or the resulting flour, this option does not seem to affect the reliability of the experiments. Similarly, there is ethnographical evidence of specific utensils for the preparation and processing of these products, such as the talopalas, from which we can suggest that there was a series of tools used for this task, although they have not been preserved, and that these were made by the people who ate acorns. Several pots associated with the studied plant macroremains are conical, with large apertures and flat bottoms (Apella´niz 1973; Vegas 1978; Alday 1998), similar to those used in the experiments. When choosing materials in order to create the mill used in our experiment, we looked for a type of rock that was resistant to abrasion and fragmentation and/or granulation of its surface, and used similar rock types to those found in the regional archaeological record (Apella´niz 1973; Apellaniz 1974; Vegas 1978; Barandiaran 2004; Alday et al. 2014). We also aimed for morphological simplicity; instead
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454
of making an idealized type of manual mill, such as a saddle quern or rotary quern, etc., we chose for the base of the mill a flat piece of quartz sandstone of moderate size, found in an environment appropriate for our purposes. It was rubbed with an ophite stone to flatten the grinding surface, with the aim of recreating the situation in a seasonal or functional habitat, but with relative stability of the settlement. Specific types of mills are found in situations of greater stability, related to full agriculture, in which wild foods like acorns would have been secondary products for most of the time (Wright 1994; Pardo-de-Santayana et al. 2006; Menendez-Baceta et al. 2012; Claudia 2013; Garcia Gomez and Pereira Sieso 2013). Portable mills of the type which we used have been found in various places and from various periods, with examples from throughout the Iberian Peninsula (Barandiaran 1978; Aura and Jardon 2006) and the Near East (McCorriston 1994; Younker 1995; Mason 1995; Aurenche 1997). In fact, the use of large stone tools for the processing of plant products such as husked seeds by rubbing and crushing them, perhaps in a sort of early grinding process, from the end of the Palaeolithic period, is an idea with more presence in current archaeological thinking, with the consequent use of multi-purpose stone tools (Martı´nez-Moreno et al. 2006; Laborda Martı´nez 2013; Roda Gilabert et al. 2013). Later, with the intensification of agricultural practices, manual mills would have acquired more specialized typological characteristics, increasing their size and productive capacity. Regarding the choice of the method of leaching process, we opted for the filter with running water as a method of removing tannic acid from the acorns, because it has been widely used, as witnessed by ethnology in the past (Gifford 1936; Driver 1952; Hole 1978, 1979; Younker 1995; Katz 2012, pp. 310–311), its speed against other methods such as drying and maturing by heat (Menendez-Baceta et al. 2012; Claudia 2013) and the possibility that it offers for taking samples throughout the process, which is one of the objectives of the present paper. This method was complemented by the use of already-dried acorns, a pre-selection of larger individuals and in better conditions of preservation, and a prior roasting or baking of the acorns, according to classical sources such as Pliny the Elder c. AD 77 (Einaudi 1984) and current research (Zapata 2000; Cunningham 2011; Roda Gilabert et al. 2013). We could see from our experimentation that the preservation of flour in optimal conditions for human consumption is feasible through efficient storage. Indeed, even if we attempted to keep samples in a dry environment, in some cases the time elapsed between the leaching process and the time of cooking allowed degradation and growth of mildew. Acorn flour therefore needs to be cooked, dried or preserved in some other way, if it is to be kept for some time.
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Conclusions One of the ideas of our research is that the type of procedure shown in this study has been done since prehistoric times. We have seen, thanks to ethnographic studies and our experiments, that the realization that making food from acorns was not only feasible in prehistory, but it has also been carried out until today with similar methods and with only small changes in the source of heat or the materials used. In essence, it is a process which relies on manual work with accessible ingredients, easy use and the possibility that the food could be stored that overall provides remarkable nutritional value. The experiments had the objective to prepare cake from acorns as it could have been done over the last 10,000 years in the western Pyrenees following a chaıˆne ope´ratoire which can be found in the ethnography of the territory, as well as in the scientific, archaeological and historical literature. By this we can confirm that the consumption of products made from acorns is possible only when most of the tannic acids, which cause bitterness and may be harmful to the human body, are removed. We also showed that the preparation is possible with accessible materials and methods which could have been used by recent and prehistoric people, although preparation and storage would have been difficult without items such as pottery. In any case, we want to emphasize the importance of wild plants in the diet of pre-agrarian societies and those in the early stages of agriculture. Despite the scarce archaeological evidence of acorn remains in the study area, mainly due to preservation issues, their presence suggests use as food or accompanying firewood. Furthermore, the contribution of ethnography to the knowledge of acorn consumption provided both by historical sources and oral communication is considerable. The gathering of plant food from the wild and its processing have played a very important role in human diet. The proof of this is that collecting, processing and consumption of seasonal wild products such as acorns have continued until nowadays, perhaps enhanced or restricted to periods in which other foods such as cereals were scarce. However, it may be possible, as shown by evidence from Natufian and Kebarian communities in the Near East (10,000–8,000 BP), that the consumption of acorns together with wild crops is another element of the new customs of food production in Neolithic times (Aurenche 1997). Likewise, we should not forget that the introduction of new foodstuffs such as potatoes, maize or tomatoes from the European colonization of the Americas could have played an important role in the disuse of these wild foods. Finally, it is necessary to stress that the elimination of the tannins for the preparation of food from acorns should not have been an
Veget Hist Archaeobot (2016) 25:443–457
insurmountable problem for the human societies that consumed them, since the by-products may be useful for other tasks such as tanning leather, as well as oak galls (Theophrastus c. 4th century BC, Hort 1916). In that sense, the obtaining of certain by-products such as acetone and protein solvent could have resulted in great interest from human groups in sustainable full use of Quercus products as a foodstuff, tanning agent and for building. Acknowledgments M. Ayerdi and H.H. Herna´ndez benefit from postgraduate grants from the University of the Basque Country. A. Echazarreta-Gallego and I. Sarasketa-Gartzia benefit from postgraduate grants from the Basque Government. They have been partially funded by the research project of the Spanish Science Ministry HAR2014-53536-P (La ruta occidental del poblamiento de la Penı´nsula Ibe´rica durante el Paleolı´tico medio y superior), and the Research Team in Prehistory of the University of the Basque Country (IT-622-13). S. De Francisco-Rodrı´guez benefits from a postgraduate grant from the Junta de Castilla y Leo´n and the European Social Fund. We would like to thank all the people who helped us, especially Eduardo Bizkarra from Arratia valley, Alejandro Prieto, Unai Perales, Amaia Arranz, Marta Portillo and David Garcı´a-Seisdedos, as well as the reviewers of the manuscript.
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