Paleo-medicine at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov

Abstract

The 780,000 year-old archaeological site at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (in current day Israel) contains a large assemblage of well-preserved plant remnants, among which are about 9,000 remnants that are hypothesized to be representative of the plant foods consumed by the hominins who occupied the site. This paper argues that some of the plant taxa were more likely to have been used as medicines than as foods. Six arguments support the medicinal plant hypothesis: 1. a literature search of major phytochemical and botanical databases (e.g., USDA Dr. Duke's phytochemical and ethnobotanical databases; Kew State of the world's plants) shows that a significant portion of the plant taxa in the assemblage are potentially toxic to humans, suggesting that they were more likely to have had non-dietary than dietary uses; 2. a literature search of major food nutrition databases (e.g., USDA Food Data Central) shows that a significant portion of the plant taxa have low nutritional and caloric value compared to other plant taxa and faunal material in the assemblage, also suggesting that they were more likely to have had non-dietary than dietary uses; 3. a literature search of major botanical databases shows that the proportion of medicinal to non-medicinal plant taxa in the assemblage is significantly higher than global proportions; 4. a literature search of major herbal medicine databases and reference works (e.g., USDA Dr. Duke's phytochemical and ethnobotanical databases; Native American ethnobotany database; Complete German Commission E monographs: Therapeutic guide to herbal medicines) shows that all 55 edible plant taxa in the assemblage have been used as plant medicines in traditional medicine, and most are still in use in contemporary herbal medicine; 5. a literature search of published phytochemical and pharmacological analyses of the 55 edible plant taxa shows that almost all contain medicinally active properties; and 6. the use of plant medicines would have provided significant fitness benefits to the hominins who occupied the site. Taken together, these arguments suggest that the plant assemblage at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov contains evidence of the oldest medicines used by humans.