Digging up a 15,000 Year-Old Seaweed Medicine Hut
In 1975, a veterinary student from the Southern University of Chile stumbled on what he thought was a cow bone while out for a walk. His discovery turned out to be a mastodon tusk and contained scrape marks where humans had cut away the meat. This finding launched a 10 year excavation project by archaeologist Tom Dillehay and his colleagues. They dug and they dug. They picked at the fibers in the soil with dental picks. They sifted, they radiocarbon dated and then dug some more. What they discovered was a roughly 15,000 year-old site containing a small village of huts.
Nine seaweed species were found among the plant and animal remains. When the scientists examined the material microscopically, they found all nine species were excellent sources of iodine, zinc, hormones and trace elements, as well as protein. Archaeologists who specialize in the analysis of plants to discover how ancient societies organized themselves, participate in the specialized field of archeobotany. They discovered that those prehistoric people consumed seaweeds which regulated cholesterol metabolism, strengthened bones and strengthened immune response. The findings show how sophisticated the prehistoric people were with respect to plant medicine.
One of the Monte Verde, Chile village structures was set apart as a “medicine hut” where the seaweeds were prepared. Some specimens were found dried, showing they had been preserved, and some specimens were burnt in the way later healers used to use seaweed ashes to treat goiter. Eventually the iodine component of seaweed was identified by the researchers as the most active ingredient. What archaeologists called a “masticated cud” with antibiotic properties was found with teeth marks, suggesting one of the ways seaweed was consumed was in the form of a large lozenge that would get the medicine directly into the bloodstream via the blood vessels in the mouth, bypassing digestion.
It is known that iodine in its isolated form can irritate the stomach. One might speculate this lozenge may have been designed to eliminate the problem; the same problem Dr. Guy Abraham solved 15,000 years later by coating his iodine tablets with a pharmaceutical glaze so they wouldn’t irritate the stomach … Caveman, meet Dr. A.
Another striking discovery about the prehistoric Monte Verde inhabitants is that they lived in a region rich with plants and animals, but seaweeds were not available locally. The nearest seaweeds came from the far distant coast. Natives would have needed to walk 90 kilometers west to acquire it from the seacoast or else find prehistoric trading partners. This information shows how prized seaweeds were to their culture.
From Prehistoric Chile to Vitamin Shoppe
According to Dillehay’s supporting materials for Monte Verde: Seaweed, Food, Medicine, and the Peopling of South America, some of the excavated seaweeds are still used today by the indigenous Huilliche people to treat rashes, inflammations, abscesses, tumors, ulcers, eye infections, gout and other conditions. I found Gigartina, one of the seaweeds found at the Monte Verde site, in capsules in the Vitamin Shoppe chain store. Research shows this red seaweed has been used for millennia as an immune stimulant and antiviral in traditional Chinese medicine as well as other cultures. Many contemporary naturopaths and herbalists recommend Gigartina, unaware that 15,000 years ago prehistoric peoples used the exact same botanical.
Fast forward ten centuries. Written history actually documents seaweeds as medicine. Herbal medicine books were among the first books produced, written by hand, in ancient China, Egypt, India and Europe. Most often such writings were created on manuscript “paper” or scrolls and recorded the traditional medical practices. They were often accompanied by drawings so the reader could identify the right plant.
The Emperor Shennong is credited with the founding of Chinese herbal medicine, but most likely he only possessed the foresight to record traditional remedies which had been passed along by word of mouth through the generations. They were recorded in the Pen Ts’ao ching or Great Herbal pharmacopoeia in about 2700 BCE. Hai Tsao, one of the seaweeds found at the Monte Verde site, also is listed in the ancient Chinese herbal as a treatment for tumors, goiter and tuberculosis. Laminaria, a brown seaweed, was recommended for tumors then and is still studied by scientists 3,000 years later.
The famous Ebers Medical Papyrus was reportedly found between the legs of a mummy in an Egyptian burial ground. When the 110 page scroll was finally translated into English by an Egyptian endocrinologist in 1987, the manuscript revealed that the Egyptians used seaweeds for breast tumors. The ancient Indian Ayurvedic medicine employed seaweed as well. The Materia Medica, a compilation of medical remedies, reports the same information, showing seaweed was a universally known remedy for everything from tumors to parasites for millennia.
Goiter was sometimes referred to as “fat neck.” Hippocrates, the ancient Greek philosopher known as the father of Western medicine, widely known for authoring the oath, “First do no harm,” also prescribed seaweed. Hippocrates made medicine a discipline distinct from philosophy but maintained philosophy’s imperative to look for errors in reasoning within medicine. He urged meticulous documenting of all clinical observations as well as taking elaborate case histories of the whole person. These holistic practices, which were the standard of care in Ancient Greece, mostly died out after his death. But at least he passed on the tradition of treating the thyroid with seaweed to his many followers.
