Mining and Dining- Prehistoric Miners’ Foodways

This Joint Research project under the lead of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, ÖAW (Kerstin Kowarik) and the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies (Frank Maixner) aims to better understand culinary practices of prehistoric people. The project focuses on human paleofeces (excrements) from the Hallstatt salt mine. The high salt concentration in the mine workings and the constant temperature of 8C offer excellent preservation conditions for millennia-old organic remains. The Hallstatt salt mine has been scientifically researched by the Natural History Museum for decades. Through microscopic and molecular analyses of these excrements, the team is now able not only to reconstruct the diet of the miners that lived about 3000 years ago (in the 12th to 10th cent. BCE and 8th to 5th cent. BCE to be precise) but also to provide remarkably precise insights into the bacterial colonization of their gut. The goal of this project is to gain a better understanding of the role that complex processed foods, in particular fermentation, played in the history of human diet and to observe changes in the gut microbiome linked to diet. Paleofeces are naturally desiccated ancient feces, which are preserved in dry caves, desert areas, waterlogged contexts, and salt mines, but also in ancient latrines, bogs or in soils when the environmental conditions prevent their deterioration. A wealth of information on nutrition, health status of the depositor and even the depositor`s DNA can be preserved in ancient feces. Under good conditions microscopic and molecular analysis can identify remains of plant foods, animal products (meat, dairy), as well as evidence for parasite infestation, the depositor`s gut microbiome and even the sex of this person. This opens the possibility to form an understanding of consumed meals going far beyond the mere identification of main diet components. This project will investigate the following questions: How complex and how varied was the prehistoric miners diet? What is the gut microbiome composition of the investigated prehistoric miners? Does the identified gut microbiome composition allow to infer long-term dietary habits? Is there evidence for the consumption of fermented foods? Do specific dietary patterns show ties to genetic sex? This research is carried out through the collaboration of several institutions: Austrian Archaeological Institute at ÖAW, Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies Bozen, Natural History Museum Vienna, CIBIO University of Trento, Institute for Systems Biology Seattle, Geosphere Austria, MedUni Wien.