Frogs' legs, known to be a French delicacy, were in fact an English delicacy originally, a new finding revealed
A new archaeological discovery has created a peculiar culinary dilemma. In an astonishing find, researchers dug up evidence that suggests Britons were feasting on frog legs 8,000 years before the meat came to be known as a French delicacy.
At first, the excavation led to a stunning discovery that suggested life existed in the Eighth Millenia BC. On further digging of the Blick Mead, a mile from Stonehenge, researchers came across a burnt humerus of a toad, among small fish vertebrate bones of trout or salmon and burnt Aurochs bones.
Researchers speculate that the bones date back to 6250 BC and 7596 BC, making them the earliest evidence of cooked frog legs. The vast number of finds from this site has made it an archaeologist's delight. So far, the dig has resulted in a staggering 12,000 finds, including 650 animal bones, all from the Mesolithic era.
"It would appear that thousands of years ago people were eating a Heston Blumenthal-style menu on this site, one and a quarter miles from Stonehenge, consisting of toads' legs, aurochs, wild boar and red deer with hazelnuts for main, another course of salmon and trout and finishing off with blackberries," David Jacques, Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Buckingham said. "This is significant for our understanding of the way people were living around 5,000 years before the building of Stonehenge and it begs the question - where are the frogs now?"
Archaeologists at Amesbury hope that with the help of University of Buckingham researchers, they will be able to gather enough material to prove that Amesbury was the oldest continuous settlement in the UK.
"No-one would have built Stonehenge without there being something unique and really special about the area," Andy Rhind-Tutt, Chairman of Amesbury Museum and Heritage Trust said. "There must have been something significant here beforehand and Blick Mead, with its constant temperature spring sitting alongside the River Avon, may well be it - I believe that as we uncover more about the site over the coming days and weeks, we will discover it to be the greatest, oldest and most significant Mesolithic home base ever found in Britain."
