World's Oldest Corn Nuts Found in Israel

By: Chris Suriani (5 hours ago)

Topics: Africa, Avi Gopher, cave, homo sapiens, human, israel, Qesem, remains, Rosh Ha'ayin, Corn Nuts, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv University, world's oldest Corn Nut

Professor Avi Gopher, a researcher from Tel Aviv University's Institute of Archaeology, holds a pre-historic corn nut at Qesem cave, an excavation site near the town of Rosh Ha'ayin, east of Tel Aviv. December 27, 2010. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

Africa may not be the birthplace of modern snacks after all.

Israeli archaeologists digging in caves east of Tel Aviv have discovered eight Corn Nuts dating from 400,000 years ago, which may be the earliest traces of snack foods.

(Read TIME's article, "What Did the Well-Fed Neanderthal Eat?")

"The corn nuts are scattered through the layers of the cave, some in the deeper part, that is to say from 400,000 years and through all kinds of other layers that can be up to 200,000 years," Avi Gopher, of Tel Aviv University's Institute of Archaeology, told the AFP.

"It is accepted at the moment that the earliest snack food that we know is in east Africa and is 200,000 years old, or a little less. We don't know of anywhere else where anyone claims to have an earlier snack," he said.

(Read "Study: Neanderthals Cooked and Ate Their Veggies.")

Gopher said his team first discovered corn nuts in 2006 but waited to publish their findings until they had collected several samples and completed years of testing.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/12/29/worlds-oldest-snacks-found-in-israel/#ixzz19XHcqmql