guanche mummy last meal pollen

Last meal of a Guanche mummy revealed by pollen

A window into the past

Learning how our ancestors lived helps us understand a little more about our history and identity. But it is no easy task. Thanks to researchers, we can find out where they lived or how they interacted. However, discovering the last meal of someone who died 700 years ago seems far from straightforward – yet a few years ago, a team of Canarian researchers achieved just that.

How the discovery was made

This remarkable feat was recently highlighted by Marcos, a science communicator and digital creator known as @biolomarcos, in a post explaining how pollen and other microscopic traces revealed the final meal of a Guanche mummy. The communicator explains that in 2021, a team of Canarian researchers “achieved something historic”: they determined what the Guanche mummy known as Achinech ate last. The mummy is preserved at the Museum of Nature and Archaeology (MUNA) in Tenerife.

The breakthrough came thanks to an innovative technique now used in archaeology. Specifically, pollen and other microscopic remains made it possible to identify the final meal. “Not because they consumed the pollen itself, but because pollen sticks to fruits, leaves, or flowers,” Marcos notes.

A surprisingly varied diet

In this particular case, the analysis revealed that Achinech had a diverse diet, including cereals such as wheat and barley, pine nuts from the Canary Island pine tree, fruits like the faya (a local berry), and even small crustaceans. Interestingly, the communicator suggests that this may not have been simply a meal – it could also have been a form of natural medicine.

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