Cooked starchy foods at Klasies River
Alimentos con almidón cocinados en Klasies River
- Date
- c. 120 ka · confidence medium
- Place
- Klasies River Cave 1, Tsitsikamma, Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Credited to
- Middle Stone Age modern humans
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Charred parenchyma from underground storage organs, found in the cave's hearths alongside burnt bones and shellfish, shows that tubers were already being cooked some 120,000 years ago. It is one of the earliest pieces of evidence for plant cooking in southern Africa.
The study (Larbey and colleagues, 2019) could not identify the plant species because the tissue was poorly preserved. The dating depends on the MSA I and Howiesons Poort layers.
What it led to
- a varied diet of tubers, shellfish and meat cooked in the same hearths
- use of plant resources available all year round on the coast
- a model of communal cooking around the fire in the Middle Stone Age