How did ancient people preserve food?

Refrigerators are a modern invention and have been around since the beginning of the 20th century.

So for millennia, people have had to find clever ways to preserve food. Many methods have been used since time immemorial .

On a fall morning in 2015, two farmers in Michigan found a pelvis from a mammoth. The team then discovered more paleontological and archaeological evidence that helped clarify the context surrounding the existence of this bone.

More than 11,000 years ago, mammoths roamed in herds across the North American continent. For hunter-gatherers, knocking down such an animal the size of an African elephant is akin to winning the lottery. So some natives put mammoth meat in the pond to preserve it.

Refrigerator is a tool used to preserve food, born in the 20th century.

Professor Daniel Fisher, curator of the University of Michigan's Museum of Paleontology, told Live Science: "The pond is the perfect place to store uneaten meat. What better alternative to hiding it? food from other carnivores and terrestrial scavengers"?

The meat is placed in one of many small, shallow ponds. Water is not a preservative for meat; Much of the effort lies in the water-dwelling Lactobacilli bacteria . Lactobacilli produce lactic acid , a chemical byproduct of anaerobic respiration.

Bacteria entered the meat and the lactic acid released preserved the meat. The low temperature and low oxygen content of the water are also factors that have supported the preservation process.

Professor Daniel Fisher believes the hunt may have happened in the fall. The animals were slaughtered on the spot where they fell and large chunks of meat were released into the water in small ponds nearby. The meat remains edible until next summer. Fisher knows this because he has tried the same method with venison, venison, sheep and even horses.

'The lactic acid also tenderizes the meat' - Professor Daniel Fisher said - 'It has a strong smell and taste, like Limburger cheese. This makes for an enjoyable meal' . Keeping food cold is a good idea, but not everyone has a lake nearby to store it.

Burying is another ingenious way to keep food fresh. Burying foods shields them from sunlight, heat, and oxygen, all of which accelerate food spoilage.

Swamps are an attractive option . A marsh is a freshwater wetland with a soft, porous soil bed consisting mainly of partially decomposed vegetation, also known as peat. The cool, low oxygen, highly acidic environment is suitable for storing perishable foods.

In Northern Europe, ancient civilizations would place food, including butter, in quagmire for preservation . Archaeologists have obtained cotton pads containing a paraffin-like substance from a flooded lawn. The researchers performed chemical analysis on the wax and determined it to be a dairy product, giving it the hilarious name 'swamp butter'.

Jessica Smyth, Assistant Professor at University College Dublin's School of Archeology, said: 'Within two or three years, the fat in raw butter will break down into its constituent components.

What remains is a fatty acid block. Swamps provided early farming communities with a way to preserve perishable foods, such as dairy products, for long periods of time.

Ethnography once mentioned that the ancients buried summer butter in the marshes for storage. Butter can be eaten after treatment, but may retain the aroma of surrounding peat and create a distinct flavor.