HONG KONG: It turns out even honeybees from 9,000 years ago were not safe from farmers taking the fruits of their labor for themselves.
Years of research found that humans have been consuming honey as early as 4,000 to 9,000 years ago when a team of archeologist revealed that traces of beeswax were found in cooking vessels from the Stone Age.
Researchers said that while honey is known to exist and be used since ancient times, thanks to evidence found on Egyptian stone wall paintings, no one until now knew how long ago exactly honey has been a part of man’s daily living.
The colonies, however, were limited to Northern Europe at the time due to the climate, as there were no traces of beeswax in pottery samples from northern Scandinavia, Scotland and Ireland.
“Although evidence…suggests mankind’s association with the honeybee dates back over thousands of years, when and where this association emerged has been unknown until now,” Richard Evershed, a chemist from the University of Bristol, said.
The cooking vessels and pottery with traces of beeswax were found in Neolithic wares from Denmark to southern Britain, from Algeria to the Balkans, with the oldest pot coming from Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Researchers wrote that bees and honey have been continuously exploited by man for millennia, most likely for more than just food like technological and cultural applications.
