Slashdot Mirror
Student Finds 5000-Year-Old Chewing Gum
itsthebin writes "Sarah Pickin, 23, found the lump of birch bark tar — complete with neolithic tooth prints — on a dig in Finland. Ms Pickin's tutor at the University of Derby, Professor Trevor Brown, said birch bark tar contained 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. It's particularly significant because well-defined tooth imprints were found on the gum which Sarah discovered,' he said. Ms Pickin was on a volunteer program at the Kierikki Centre on the west coast of Finland when she made the find."
I tried the same thing when my teacher found me sticking some on the bottom of my desk. She didn't believe me.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Was it found stuck under the top of a 5000 yr old desk?
This kind of makes me wonder if anyone 5,000 years from now will ever know that Singapore existed...
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Seems like that photo caption isn't the best place to make that kind of typo!
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
In before mention of ABC Gum.
Actually, this would have been Aleph Beth Gimmel Gum.
And now someone please correct my spelling of the Hebrew alphabet.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Fact: 4 out of 5 neolithic dentists surveyed would recommend birch bark tar to their patients who chew tar.
What was it's flavour?
ummmm. Birch?
music lover since 1969
It was found in a brand new Topps baseball card pack. Topps said "Most of the gum we package with our cards is about 5000-6000 years old."
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
did it lose its flavor yet?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"You know, when I see those two twins on that Doublemint commercial? I'm almost embarrassed to say this but uh... I ain't thinkin' about gum..." -Bill Hicks
Living With a Nerd
CATS/Diebold '08- All your vote are belong to us!
As a youngster, I used to chew pine gum while walking through the woods to relieve thirst. I wasn't aware of any tooth problems.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
What? An article about a female who has an interest in the sciences, and no one has commented on that yet? Is this still Slashdot?
--
Won't someone please think of the trolls?
I would assume it has a similar flavor to modern day birch bark tar, which is similar to birch beer or root beer... Kind of a wintergreen flavor, but not as minty, if that makes any sense at all.... Loggers commonly used to chew on the stuff, and in my case I tried some whilst in the woods.
The article doesn't mention the package that was found nearby. It was a wooden box carved with
Grunt Growl Roar
Snort Grumble Grunt!
load "$",8,1
Anyone who's collected baseball cards between 1980 and 1994 knows they've been sticking 5000-year-old chewing gum in wax packs for ages already.
In the eternal words of Dani Filth (well...I don't know if he coined the phrase but it's on a Cradle of Filth shirt...) "Dead girls don't say no"
Living With a Nerd
The Mayan's (IIRC Might be a different civilization) life expectancy took a major dive with the invention of maize. If you look at the skulls of Mayans around that period you'll find lots of cavities and the like. The theory is that people before this time kept their teeth because they ate things like meat or whole vegetables, things which tended to be a lot tougher and didn't get into crevices in your teeth. With the invention of processed foods like maize people did begin to get cavities and loose their teeth early and then lifespan dive, hence the dive around the time of agricultural development.
Dental Carries didn't become common until man started farming cereal grains. As you guessed, cavities became even more common with the introduction of cheap sugar. You may enjoy this article about primitive diets. http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/nast y_brutish_short.html
I got my first post stolen... by someone replying to the wrong story. Damn my luck!
:-)
They can't chew gum and post at the same time
Table-ized A.I.
It's 7000 years old.