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The diet and eating habits of earlier civilizations has been inferred from old manuscripts and artwork, but there is always a question as to how representative that is of what the common diet was at the time, in much the same way as whether in a millennia from now one could infer our modern-day diet from surviving ``foodie'' magazines. It is always a bonus when you can have access to direct tissue to analyze. In a recent paper in the Open Access journal Nature Scientific Reports, Atsushi Maruyama and colleagues in Japan acquired a number of book sets produced during the Edo period and they analyzed samples of human hair found in the books. By analyzing the abundances of various carbon and nitrogen isotopes they were able to make inferences about the early Japanese diet.
The covers of such books are made of recycled thick paper, which, for financial reasons, was believed to have been produced soon before book printing, using waste paper collected in the same cities where the books were printed. Because the hairs are embedded in the paper fibres, the hairs are thought to have been mixed accidentally during waste paper collection or blended intentionally for reinforcement during paper production. In either case, the hairs most likely belong to people living in the city and year of book printing, both of which are available from the records (colophon) on the book. Thus, the hairs found in each book, together with the records of time and place, constitute the ideal human tissue samples to reconstruct the eating habits at the time and place of the book printing, using isotope analysis.
They found that people depended upon rice, vegetables, and fish more exclusively than contemporary Japanese people. They also noticed that the levels of nitrogen increased over 200 years, indicating an increase in the contribution of marine fish as both food and fertilizer, which generally confirms what literature-based studies have found.
Atsushi Maruyama, Jun'ichiro Takemura, Hayato Sawada, Takaaki Kaneko, Yukihiro Kohmatsu & Atsushi Iriguchi, Hairs in old books isotopically reconstruct the eating habits of early modern Japan, Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 12152 (2018)
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday August 15 2018, @04:42PM (4 children)
I am also surprised. I would expect that animal hair would be more readily available.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Wednesday August 15 2018, @05:17PM (1 child)
Short animal hair, yes. Longer animal hair comes with more noble and expensive animals, while you can find plenty of humans trying to periodically get rid of long hair.
Could have even started as an insult to someone, after cutting their hair for some disgrace and realizing it worked well.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 15 2018, @05:26PM
Also, longer animal hair sometimes has an important practical use, such as wool clothing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Thursday August 16 2018, @05:10AM
I have known some Japanese, and if there is one thing I can say about them ( I have many things, actually ), they are extremely resourceful and efficient.
They probably saw the barbershop floor and knew exactly what to do with what they found on it.
Most of us don't seem to think that way. They do. They will take other people's junk and make wonderful things with it.
I remember having a toy when I was a kid, that when I took it apart, found it was made from a recycled can. Dad commented on how "cheap" they were, "Made in Japan", but it struck me as to how neatly they avoided all the steps to get back to a sheet of refined metal, took what they could get, and made do with it. A literal demonstration of the old phrase "waste not, want not".
I've always admired them for that.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday August 16 2018, @07:11AM
In Japan I would have been a lot more surprised if they used animal hair.
Other than their gap of a couple of hundred years were eating meat was something considered for the outcasts (with buddism and all that that), Japan has always been immensly resource starved (the ocean has been their only great abundant resource really, and not many maritime creatures has long hair).
(This also explains why they are so excellent at refining production to their extremes, and their abundance of fish and poultry-dishes, it was of necessity)
Even today grazing cattle are something of a rarity in japan, but humans has always been abundant to the point where a feudal lord could view them as disposable in most regions (up until modern humanism set in).