Ancient vessels, discovered by accident on the Mongolian steppe, have given us new insight into how the land’s ancient inhabitants ate.
Archeologists have scraped caked residue from the insides of two Bronze Age cauldrons dating back 2,750 years, revealing that the vessels were once used for collecting the blood of ruminants, such as sheep and goats, as well as the milk of wild yaks (Bos mutus).
What did they do with the blood, you ask? Well, we can’t know for certain, but it was likely used for dietary purposes, such as the production of blood sausage, similar to sausage-making techniques still used in rural Mongolia today.
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