Student Finds 5000-Year-Old Chewing Gum

itsthebin writes "Sarah Pickin, 23, found the lump of birch bark tar — complete with neolithic tooth prints — on a dig in Finland. Ms Pickin's tutor at the University of Derby, Professor Trevor Brown, said birch bark tar contained phenols, which are antiseptic compounds. 'It is generally believed that neolithic people found that by chewing this stuff if they had gum infections it helped to treat the condition. It's particularly significant because well-defined tooth imprints were found on the gum which Sarah discovered,' he said. Ms Pickin was on a volunteer program at the Kierikki Centre on the west coast of Finland when she made the find."

Deja vu

[MyLongNickName (822545)]

I tried the same thing when my teacher found me sticking some on the bottom of my desk. She didn't believe me.

I just gotta ask....

[Nick Driver (238034)]

Was it found stuck under the top of a 5000 yr old desk?

Re:

[ArcherB (796902)]

Was it found stuck under the top of a 5000 yr old desk?

I think it was found on the bottom of a 5000 yr old shoe.

Re:

[An ominous Cow art (320322)]

I wonder if it would have lost its flavor on a bedpost over 5,000 years.

Where it was found

[Hoi Polloi (522990)]

It was found in a brand new Topps baseball card pack. Topps said "Most of the gum we package with our cards is about 5000-6000 years old."

Re:

[owlnation (858981)]

It was found in a brand new Topps baseball card pack.

In the pack, along with the gum were the rookie cards of Roger Clemens, Juan Franco, Tom Glavine, Orlando Hernandez and Jamie Moyer.

Singapore

[Rude Turnip (49495)]

This kind of makes me wonder if anyone 5,000 years from now will ever know that Singapore existed...

Needs to be said

[eclectro (227083)]

Double you pleasure, double your fun.

Even the cave man knew that.

Re:

[Codifex Maximus (639)]

eclectro said:
> Even the cave man knew that.

You guys are underestimating cave men! Haven't you seen the Geico commercials? http://www.cavemanscrib.com/ [cavemanscrib.com]

What I want to know is... how the heck did they know that the broken amber ring was used as payment for seal skins??

Re:Needs to be said

[Pojut (1027544)]

"You know, when I see those two twins on that Doublemint commercial? I'm almost embarrassed to say this but uh... I ain't thinkin' about gum..." -Bill Hicks

Re:

[WormholeFiend (674934)]

You'd have to be pretty desperate to be interested in cavewomen

Unless you're that Geico caveman dude...?

Re:Needs to be said

[Pojut (1027544)]

In the eternal words of Dani Filth (well...I don't know if he coined the phrase but it's on a Cradle of Filth shirt...) "Dead girls don't say no"

Photo Caption

[Gadgetfreak (97865)]

Seems like that photo caption isn't the best place to make that kind of typo!

Re:

[everphilski (877346)]

i dont get it, but i am an engineer, and dont speak english good and stuff ...

Re:

[everphilski (877346)]

ok i found it :)

Re:

[Jim Hall (2985)]

Here is the photo caption from the article, for those looking for it:

stone age "chewing cum"

(about 2/3 down the page)

Interesting fact...

[iamdrscience (541136)]

Fact: 4 out of 5 neolithic dentists surveyed would recommend birch bark tar to their patients who chew tar.

Re:Interesting fact...

[ma++i+ude (580592)]

You may be more correct than you think. Birch sap contains xylitol [wikipedia.org], the sugar that's actually good for your teeth. It's still used in chewing gum, especially (and almost exclusively) in Finland where it was first discovered but increasingly in other countries as well. Find it in a supermarket near you.

Re:Interesting fact...

[evanbd (210358)]

Just to be pedantic...

Xylitol is actually a sugar alcohol, not a "true" sugar. Sorbitol is similar. Both are good for you because the bacteria in your teeth try to digest it, but can't actually get any nutrition from it -- so the energy spent trying is wasted.

Re:

[MightyYar (622222)]

And both taste nasty... :)

Re:

[jd (1658)]

Yes, but which type of birch? To quote Wikipedia, "Birch is the name of any tree of the genus Betula (Bé-tu-la), in the family Betulaceae, closely related to the beech/oak family, Fagaceae". The article there goes on to list 32 genetically distinct types of birch tree. I can't see how they'd produce identical chewing gum and I seriously doubt that every single variety would even be safe.

Re:

[ma++i+ude (580592)]

I wouldn't know if all birches produce xylitol but I guess it's possible if they are related. In Finland sap is collected from both of the common varieties, the silver birch (Betula pendula) and the downy birch (Betula pubescens), of which the latter gives more sap. There is a third native birch variety, the dwarf birch (Betula nana), but it's tiny so it wouldn't be much good for collecting sap.

Re:Interesting fact...

[ma++i+ude (580592)]

In case anyone's interested, there seems to be a nice sap-collecting-howto, with pictures, here [cybis.se].

Re:

[budgenator (254554)]

No it isn't, you would be amazed at the number of periodontally diseased people who have had major heart attacks, strokes, various autoimmune diseases and type 2 diabetes. Cronic infection and inflammation is serious.

everyone wants to know:

[circletimessquare (444983)]

did it lose its flavor yet?

The bubble gum company went extinct

[Lucas123 (935744)]

Because of birch tar's long lasting flavor, the average caveman never had to buy another pack. Not so coincidentally, companies began building products with predictable defects. Hence, the birth of a disposable goods society began soon after.

Collector's note

[Rob T Firefly (844560)]

Due to this gum's extreme age, the baseball cards sold with it were all rookies.

Interesting picture caption

[Rebelgecko (893016)]

One of the pictures is captioned

stone age "chewing cum"

Cue the jokes!

Tree Gum

[Stanistani (808333)]

As a youngster, I used to chew pine gum while walking through the woods to relieve thirst. I wasn't aware of any tooth problems.

Am I still reading Slashdot?

[katarn (110199)]

What? An article about a female who has an interest in the sciences, and no one has commented on that yet? Is this still Slashdot?

--
Won't someone please think of the trolls?

figured...

[ryanw (131814)]

I've always wondered how "humans" existed for all these years without a toothbrush. You would think they would have cavities and tons of pains. I would guess that a major factor that contributed to the ancient human was that they didn't have sugar treats that would stick to their teeth. Proteins and things can stick to your teeth and cause quite a problem, but not as bad as a bag of skittles and coke can do in a day or two without cleaning the crap off your teeth.

Re:

[east coast (590680)]

Not to mention the short life spans. These guys lived to be what? Early 20s or so? Hell, there are people in their early 20s who still don't have all of their secondary teeth. If teeth were being replaced every 10-12 years throughout your life you'd probably have little use for a dentist too.

Re:

[MightyYar (622222)]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that lifespans didn't take a dive like that until agriculture and subsistence farming. I think that hunter-gatherers lived much longer, due to a relatively low rate of disease and a better diet.

Even then, the low "life-expectancy" that you read about is a bit misleading. Life expectancy got dragged down by very high childhood death rates. Once you made it past childhood, you had a reasonable expectation to live into your 50s or so.

So then I guess the question again is, how did anyo

Re:figured...

[BECoole (558920)]

Dental Carries didn't become common until man started farming cereal grains. As you guessed, cavities became even more common with the introduction of cheap sugar. You may enjoy this article about primitive diets. http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/nast y_brutish_short.html [westonaprice.org]

I hope she found enough for everyone!

[nightsweat (604367)]

Harumph.

l337 archeology sk1LLz

[upside (574799)]

I have to wonder how they manage to divine the exact history of an item, like

After that someone made a hole in the ring so that it could still be used as jewellery. It was transported from the Baltic coast c. 5500-6000 years ago as payment for seal skins that were produced in the Kierikki area in the Neolithic Period.

What? You can't be any more exact? I want to know the shape, weight and colour of the seal skins, and who bought them.

Otherwise a nice story. I have to go back and re-read the second paragraph

Package was found nearby

[fishthegeek (943099)]

The article doesn't mention the package that was found nearby. It was a wooden box carved with

Grunt Growl Roar
Snort Grumble Grunt!

Old News

[Renaissance 2K (773059)]

Anyone who's collected baseball cards between 1980 and 1994 knows they've been sticking 5000-year-old chewing gum in wax packs for ages already.

Chew Gum

[lucabrasi999 (585141)]

I came here to chew gum and kick ass. And, I am all out of gu....err...wait...what's this?

5000 BC, not 5000 years old

[Annymouse Cowherd (1037080)]

It's 7000 years old.

Re:

[MyLongNickName (822545)]

In before mention of ABC Gum.

Actually, this would have been Aleph Beth Gimmel Gum.

And now someone please correct my spelling of the Hebrew alphabet.

Re:

[i.r.id10t (595143)]

Change beth to bet and you're just about as close as you can get without actually using hebrew characters...

Re:

[Dr. Eggman (932300)]

Considering it had antiseptic phenols, I would guess it would 'taste' like anti-septic sprays: like a numb tongue.

Re:

[sjf (3790)]

That'll be the anaesthetic, not the anti-septic, that numbs your tongue.

Re:Just wondering?

[djdavetrouble (442175)]

What was it's flavour?

ummmm. Birch?

Re:

[LifesABeach (234436)]

I can not help but wonder what the Rookie Card that came with the gum would be worth today?

Re:

[Hoi Polloi (522990)]

Yummm, rosin flavor! Hard to blow bubbles with.

Re:

[FlatLine84 (1084689)]

I would assume it has a similar flavor to modern day birch bark tar, which is similar to birch beer or root beer... Kind of a wintergreen flavor, but not as minty, if that makes any sense at all.... Loggers commonly used to chew on the stuff, and in my case I tried some whilst in the woods.

Re:

[everphilski (877346)]

it tastes like a BIRCH!

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

Shhh... the creationists are listening.