5000 year old chewing gum Discovered!

A recent find in Finland, uncovered a primitive type of chewing gum complete with Neolithic tooth prints. The gum is composed of Birch Bark Tar which contains a type of natural Antiseptic compound. It is proposed that ancient man chewed the gum whenever they had problems with their teeth and gums.

"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."

-From Slashdot

Kierikki Archaeological Exhibition

Some of you may have tried natural Spruce gum, which can often be found oozing from wounds in a Spruce tree. While it may take getting used to for some folks, it is tasty and mixing in a little honey will sweeten the deal.

Natural gums have been known for centuries and this new find only adds to our knowledge of our ancestors lives.

Wow, simply wow.

Always astounds me when something like this is uncovered. To think that someone chewed this all those thousands of years ago and the evidence is still here today.

It's sad how early man has always been labeled as a dunderhead with a club when they knew medical stuff like this.

Good find.

I was amused at the find...those darn humans will eat or chew just about anything!

I thought the properties of the gum were interesting -- probably a good preventive for tooth decay (to some extent) as well as a breath freshener. They probably needed that after a night of noshing on not-very-fresh mammoth tidbits (if you didn't know, many of the "mammoth kills" are actually humans scavenging the beast after it died of other causes.)

5000 years! And I can't even get my gum to last for much more than 30 minutes.

But seriously, I wonder if 5000 years from now scientists will be studying all the gum we currently chuck out the car window, and that laying around on our sidewalks?