lines of flight

Wow, how disgusting. Yet strangely not unfamiliar .

Some student archaeologists from the UK uncovered a 6,000-year-old globular remnant of birch tar chewing gum at a Neolithic site in Finland.

“Most likely the lump was used as an antique kind of chewing gum,” said Sami Viljamaa, an archaeologist who led the dig near Oulu, some 380 miles north of the capital, Helsinki. “But its main purpose was to fix things.” [Yahoo]

Like duct tape it could be used to repair anything, from ceramics to stone-age weaponry. Or you could chew it, if there was nothing to fix. Just the thought makes my teeth ache. But according to the student’s adviser in England,

“Birch bark tar contains 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.” [Guardian UK]

The Yahoo! article connects this to the present day popularity of healthy xylitol gums, formulated in Finland. But you cannot tell me that that does not look like some nasty, sticky, half-melted, bottom-of-the-bag, blob of licorice. . . that you’d eat if you had to, you know, in an emergency.

“The ancient Finnish habit of chewing gum surged in the 1980s when Finnish scientists discovered that gum containing xylitol, a natural sweetener found in plant tissue including birch trees, prevents tooth decay. Schools began to give xylitol gum free to children after meals, and sales of chewing gum almost doubled during five years as xylitol’s popularity grew.” [Yahoo italics mine, sheesh]

I’m a big fan of xylitol gum, and have in my possession a box of fruit-flavored XyliDent Moomin gum, courtesy of my mother. As I type this I’m chewing on a “pellet” from the Moominpappa box. Unfortunately the fruity, cartoon-branded versions of Finnish candies never seem to have very good flavor. The Jenkki brand by Leaf is a better choice.

Not sure which types they sell at the “stone age village activity center,” which was near the site of the discovery, or if gum-chewing is offered as an activity.