Aug. 20, 2007 — A Stone Age piece of chewing gum, one of the oldest ever to be discovered, has been found by a Scottish archaeology student in Finland.
Still bearing tooth impressions, the 5,000-year-old glob was made from birch bark tar and looked "just like a dirty piece of modern chewing gum," student Sarah Pickin, 23, told the daily Scotsman.
"I was also worried it could have been a bit of fossilized poo," Pickin added.
Pickin made the discovery while on a six-week volunteer program at the Kierikki Center, an archaeological and exhibition site on the west coast of Finland.
Containing carbolic acid, an antiseptic compound, the unflavored birch bark would have proved useful in treating mouth infections.
"By chewing this stuff, Neolithic people suffering from gum and throat infections might have found some relief," Trevor Brown, Pickin's tutor at the University of Derby, told Discovery News.
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Also used as a glue for affixing arrowheads to shafts, the prehistoric chewing gum was made by simply heating birch bark.
