Cooked Hypoxis rhizomes at Border Cave
Rizomas cocinados de Hypoxis en Border Cave
- Date
- c. 170 ka · confidence medium
- Place
- Border Cave, Lebombo Mountains, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
- Credited to
- Middle Stone Age modern humans
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Charred Hypoxis rhizomes (the 'African potato') found in Border Cave's hearths are the oldest known evidence of cooked starchy tubers. They show that cooking underground plant foods was part of the Homo sapiens diet some 170,000 years ago.
The finding (Wadley and colleagues, 2020) rests on charred rhizomes and their hearth context; that they were cooked is the most plausible interpretation, not a direct observation.
What it led to
- a diet with more digestible energy from plants as well as meat
- use of hearths as kitchens and not only as a heat source
- seasonal exploitation of plants with underground storage organs in southern Africa