WASHINGTON The frescoes from the era of the New Kingdom of Egypt depicting bees and honey in everyday life about 4,400 years ago is evidence that humans have long used the products produced by bees. In fact it turns out humans have been used long before that time.
Scientists said Wednesday they found evidence of beeswax or beeswax in pottery made by the people of the Stone Age were derived from the culture of farming and farming in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, including a cooking pot from a location on eastern Turkey who came from around 8,500 years ago.
"The chemicals beeswax typical Neolithic are found in various locations across Europe, showing how extensive the relationship between humans and honeybees in prehistoric times," said an expert in organic geochemistry Mélanie Roffet-Salque from the University of Bristol in England.
The beeswax in pottery because people were using honey, which left a trail of honey wax, or beeswax coating in the pan to make it watertight, said Roffet-Salque.
"It is clear that the people of the stone age well recognize their environment and they use natural resources such as beeswax, as well as tree sap and tar," said Roffet-Salque.
Honey is the main reason why they utilize honey bees, "sweetener which is rare for people prehistoric," said Roffet-Salque.
"However, beeswax may also be used for various technological purposes, rituals, cosmetics and medical, for example to create a pot or vase waterproof or soften the tar from birch trees to be used as a glue," said Roffet-Salque.
Honey can not be directly detected because most of its main ingredient is sugar that may not survive in archaeological sites thousands of years old.
"Detecting beeswax in cookware allows us to conclude that farmers and ranchers in the past also makes use of bee products: beeswax and honey," said Roffet-Salque.
The walls of ancient Egypt, prehistoric rock art and other evidence indicates that humans have been using honey bees since many centuries ago, but how long and how widespread its use is still unclear.
The researchers examined the chemical compounds that are around 6,000 pieces of pottery made of clay from more than 150 locations of the Ancient World.
Pottery coming from the north, for example, from Scotland and Scandinavia, do not contain beeswax.
This suggests the possibility of honeybees do not exist in the region due to harsher weather conditions, said biogeochemists Richard Evershed from Bristol University.
The research is published in the journal Nature.
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