Too ceaselessly we put out of your mind it, however mushrooms have adopted the historical past of mankind: drugs, geopolitics, psychology, structure, gastronomy, they’ve been provide in lots of spaces of our existence for the reason that Neolithic.
On this excerpt from his e book Ten Mushrooms That Modified Other folks’s Lives (Actes Sud Editions, 2025), mycologist Hubert Voiri talks about two mushrooms that archaeologists discovered within the bag of Ocius, a prehistoric guy by chance found out in 1991 at an altitude of three,200 meters within the Italian Alps. He tries to determine why this guy had tinder and birch polypores with him.
Occi carried a small leather-based bag full of black subject matter. Additionally on this bag had been 3 flint equipment and a bone within the form of an axe. To start with we concept the black subject matter used to be resin and that this bag used to be some roughly “tool repair kit”. Then again, when the substance dried, it confirmed a brown colour. Microscopic exam of this merchandise printed that it’s the flesh of a mushroom, tinder tree (Fomes fomentarius). This brown flesh discovered beneath the bark (best floor) of the mushroom is hand processed to provide a fibrous product known as tinder. Blended with this subject matter, lines of pyrite had been additionally found out. Flint, pyrite and tinder in combination make it conceivable to start out and care for hearth.
This isn’t the oldest proof of the usage of tinder for hearth. This has certainly been present in massive amounts related to pyrite nodules on the Famous person Carr archaeological web page in England relationship again just about 10,000 years. The similar observations had been made within the archaeological excavations of Maglemoze in Denmark, a web page relationship again 8,000 years. There may be more moderen proof relationship again to the Bronze Age in Switzerland, on the prehistoric websites of historical lakeside villages. Tinder subsequently has the valuables of manufacturing and transporting hearth. Opposite to well-liked trust, folks of that point didn’t strike two flints in combination to start out a fireplace, because the sparks produced by means of their hanging are too ephemeral to ignite the gas. They principally used two ways: that of friction towards picket and that of percussion, which used to be most definitely utilized by the Fathers. Within the first, we position a work of picket vertically above every other positioned at the floor. We rub a work of picket towards every other, giving it a rotational motion with our arms. This produces heated sawdust that can supply some embers. Then it is important to put them involved with dry twigs. This procedure left no archaeological lines. Any other way is to make use of, like Oci, pyrite, flint and tinder. Placing a work of iron disulfide (pyrite or marcasite) towards a troublesome rock corresponding to flint creates sparks. Tinder involved with a spark is able to igniting simply because of its fibrous construction, and the fireplace can smolder for a very long time, making it simple to move. It stays to provide a flame, as an example, by means of bringing a red-hot ember into touch with very dry grass or bark fibers.
To facilitate ignition, the methodology has been perfected. The tinder is minimize into skinny slices which are softened with a pestle after which left to dry. Over the centuries, saltpeter or ash remedies had been advanced to show you how to catch hearth. The well-known mycologist Christiaan Hendrik Persoon offers an outline in his Treatise on Safe to eat Mushrooms, which accommodates a sign of damaging species revealed in 1818. He specifies that the woodcutters of the Vosges had a much less beneficial methodology for treating rot: they buried slices of “boletus” and watered them with urine for a undeniable time.
For the reason that Iron Age, items of disulfide had been changed by means of lighters, small metal items that within the Heart Ages had the form of a flattened hook. These days, we will download, commercially, this kind of lighter, often known as a flint lighter, and thus reproduce the gestures of our ancestors by means of hanging metal towards sharpened flint. Acquire the sparks with a work of tinder or, failing that, a work of charred cotton. The “tinder” lighters that seemed round 1840 unusually didn’t include tinder. The title is taken once more, however this can be a cotton wick soaked in a chemical answer that performs the position of tinder.
These days, tinder continues to be historically used to move hearth, as in Austria all the way through the Weihfeuertragen, actually “consecrated fire transport”. On Easter Saturday, the Catholic priest gathers the households of the parishioners across the hearth which he blesses all the way through the ritual. Then the kids accumulate embers in steel cans and cross to the homes within the village to convey the blessed hearth. To facilitate shipping, they upload items of embers. Along with being the most productive polypore for making and transporting hearth, due to its flesh, the tinder tree additionally has medicinal and artisanal, even religious, virtues. The folk of Hokkaido Island in Japan, the Ainu, performed a smoke ritual round their properties in case of sickness or epidemic. They burned the culmination of F. fomentarius all night time to push back demons. A an identical ceremony used to be practiced in Siberia a number of the Khanty and in North The us a number of the Indian tribes.(…)
Any other mushroom present in Oci’s assets is birch polypore, in Latin: Fomitopsis betulina. It got here within the type of two fragments strung on a leather-based strap. One round and the opposite conical. Birch polypore, as soon as dry, catches hearth temporarily, however the hearth does now not smolder. Occi most definitely did not use it to move hearth, particularly because it already had tinder. What had been the items of this polypore for?
This query naturally sparked debates, from which two primary hypotheses emerged. Italian anthropologist Luigi Capasso used to be the primary to signify: he means that the Iceman used to be acutely aware of the presence of his intestinal parasites and fought them with suitable doses of Fomitopsis betulin. This mushroom, which is safe to eat – extra on that later – used to be most definitely the one mushroom to be had on the time. The second one speculation is defended by means of the Austrian biologist Ursula Peintner: she established a reference to sure customs of the Indians, which have been reported by means of the American biologist Robert Blanchett. They’d items adorned with spherical or oval items of Haploporus odorus, an excessively sweet-smelling polypore. Those fragments had been strung on leather-based laces after which hooked up to the sacred tunics or necklaces of the healers. This polypore used to be additionally concept to have medicinal houses: it used to be burned to provide a pleasing smoke for in poor health folks. As is ceaselessly the case in traditions, the religious and clinical facets are blended. As for Iceman, we spotted that the ends of the F. betulin elaborately strung on a leather-based strap. If it used to be a easy shipping, they’d had been positioned with out perforation within the container. Subsequently, we will assume that the items of F. betuline had a non secular and therapeutic position. Robert Blanchette additionally inspires the significance of every other mushroom, Fomitopsis officinalis, with medicinal houses to the Local American citizens and their shamans who name it “ghost bread.” Shamans used mask carved from those polypores to accomplish rituals supposed to remedy sure illnesses. Once they died, the mask had been positioned on the head of the tomb and secure the spirits of the shaman. In Austria, birch polypore culmination are carved to give protection to livestock from unhealthy success. The conical fragment of Otzi’s polypore may point out a sculpture that shouldn’t have been neatly preserved. Subsequently, shall we imagine that Oci used to be a shaman who carried with him, like a talisman, those two fragments of a mushroom with therapeutic and religious virtues. Observe that Oci’s assets weren’t looted, suggesting that individuals didn’t wish to suitable his pieces: he will have been a very powerful particular person.
