Oldest Sichuan pepper seeds unearthed

Discovery in Ziyang reveals love for spicy food during Paleolithic period

Some 60,000-year-old wild Sichuan pepper seeds unearthed at the Mengxihe Site in Ziyang, Sichuan province, have helped shed light on Paleolithic human diets that included a spicy and numbing flavor.

As plants decay easily, finding plant seeds in archaeological sites is rare. Zheng Zhexuan, director of the Paleolithic Archaeology Institute at the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said researchers were excited when they confirmed in late 2024, after more than a year of meticulous analysis, that the tiny, near-round items are Sichuan pepper seeds.

"They are the oldest Sichuan pepper seeds unearthed at sites with human activity worldwide, an extremely rare discovery even at historical sites that are just a few hundred years old," Zheng said. "It suggests that tens of millennia ago, ancient humans in Sichuan may have already used it for flavoring. The love for spicy, numbing flavors might truly be etched in Sichuan people's DNA!"