5,000-Year-Old Chewing Gum Found (Used)

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.

"After the tar was made, it was boiled, and when it cooled, it became solid. When it was heated again, it became softer, and it was used at least sometimes as some kind of chewing gum," Sini Annala, archaeologist at the Kierikki Center, said.

Tar-like materials were chewed long before modern Tutti Frutti and Wrigley's Spearmint chewing gums were imported to Europe from America in the last century. The ancient Greeks chewed mastiche, a resin from the mastic tree, the Mayas used a natural gum from the sapodilla tree, while Native Americans munched on a resin cut from the black spruce tree.

Some of the oldest examples of black lumps of tar, complete with tooth marks, have been discovered in waterlogged bog sites in northern Europe, particularly Germany and Scandinavia. The earliest lump dates from the beginning of the Middle Stone Age.

Though birch bark might have not tasted pleasant (though who knows what really captivated Neolithic taste buds), Trevor Brown believes it may have been chewed for enjoyment and as "merely a stress-relieving activity."

Whatever the purpose of chewing, the discovery is important for "the direct, graphical link with our ancestors," Brown said.

Pickin also found part of an amber ring and a slate arrow head. The items will go on display at the center, along with the prehistoric chewing gum, once they return from laboratory analyses.

Related Links:

The Kierikki Stone Age Center

Wrigley: The Origins of Chewing Gum