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How did ancient people keep their food from rotting?

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https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-...om-rotting

EXCERPT: . . . But how did ancient people preserve their foods? [...] many low-tech methods ... could have been accomplished by people thousands of years ago. The most common and familiar include drying, salting, smoking, pickling, fermenting and chilling in natural refrigerators, like streams and underground pits. For example, the Sami, indigenous people of Scandinavia, have traditionally killed reindeer in the fall and winter; the meat is dried or smoked, and the milk fermented into cheese — “a hard, compact cake which may last for years,” according to a mid-20th-century ethnographic source.

The various methods all work because they slow microbial growth. [...] archaeologists have, in many cases, uncovered traces of food-preservation efforts. ... at a Swedish site dated to 8,600 to 9,600 years ago, researchers discovered a gutter-shaped pit packed with more than 9,000 fish bones ... The paper concluded the pit was used for fermentation — what would make it the oldest evidence for fermented food. [...] from a roughly 19,000-year-old site in present-day Jordan ... 90 percent of the specimens were gazelle ... the authors suggest the postholes held a rack where meat was smoked and dried.

As for edibles, nearly 500 cakes of ancient butter have been found in bogs of Ireland and Scotland ... Forgotten butter cakes have lasted thousands of years and counting. Some are quite substantial, including a 3,000-year-old, 77-pound chunk discovered in 2009, and a 5,000-year-old, 100-pounder found in 2013. Archaeologists maintain the bog butter is theoretically edible, but advise against it... (MORE - details)
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