I suppose by now everyone has heard about the frozen corpse found in the Italian Alps in 1991. One of the most amazing archaeological finds ever, it was the body of a young man almost perfectly preserved. The clothes he was dressed in and the artifacts he was carrying were also well preserved and give important indications that this man lived nearly 5,000 years ago give or take a couple of hundred. The young man had been wounded and apparently got stranded in the high mountains by a sudden storm. Perhaps exhausted by exposure he lay down to sleep, his last. The snows that covered him that night became an unruffled blanket for five millenia. "So what has this to do with mushrooms?", you rudely intrude. Among the interesting artifacts surrounding him was a bit of fungus hanging from a thong from his waist. Somebody identified this as the Birch Polypore (Piptoporus betulinus) and it has raised all sorts of questions as to why he was carrying it. Let's examine some of these one by one. The Birch Polypore is typically 2-5" wide, but can vary 1-10". It is hemispherical or kidney-shaped bracket fungus that is attached to the tree by a rudimentary stalk. They are produced during wet conditions and although they are not perennial (adding new layers every year), they will dry and remain on a tree for a few years. It has a dingy white to gray-brown upper surface, a white to cream underneath pore surface, and most distinctively, a curved, inrolled margin which overlaps the tube layer. When fresh the upper surface is somewhat soft in a leathery way, but soon becomes tough, but not as dense or woody as Artist Conks. If you live near a birch woods, it is not too hard to find this fungus. It has a very tough leathery to woody consistency.
1) Food - heavens, no. The piece wasn't that large and as any examination of contemporary specimens would show, this species is far too tough for chewing, being mostly indigestible chitin.
2) First aid kit - although some ripe puffball spores have styptic and blood coagulative properties, there certainly would not be plentiful spores from this species. Whether it is styptic (constricts blood vessels) or not, I can't say, but the next time I see one, I'll take it home and put with my shaving kit. (To be continued . . .)
3) The ancients knew about antibiotics 5000 years before we did - This is a variant of #2 and is the most fanciful (and most common) hypothesis put forth. It is favored by the anti-science crowd. In the first place, even for the same mass of Penicillium, very, very little active ingredient is present and far below any effective therapeutic dose. If you ever have taken antibiotics, you will recall how much of it and how long you had to take it. Secondly, it could not be taken internally unless used to make a boiled extract and would only be useful as a skin application and how do you apply a piece of woody mushroom to an infected cut? The real danger from a skin infection is what was once called systemic "blood poisoning" and I wonder if the ancients would have associated the initial skin wound with the later systemic fever and prostration.
4) An amulet or charm - possibly. Who knows what sort of mysticism and thoughts went through the minds of people back then? According to the June '93 National Geographic, which has a great story on this man, there is good evidence that people worshiped stones back them. Could he have used this to ward off evil spirits or insure his well being? It obviously didn't work, whatever his beliefs. However, the man was carrying other artifacts, man-made, which suggests that had he believed in charms, he probably would have a man made one.
5) Tinder for fire starting - this is my own suggestion and one based on actual experience. From my backpacking and portaging days in the North country, I well know the feeling of trying to start a fire from materials that have been rained on for three days and I had matches! But I always managed and one of the reasons I was always successful was because it was so easy to find combustible materials, e.g., birch bark, dry wood under old logs, and dried puffballs and polypores (conks). If so, he would have also have needed something finer and fibrous to get the initial blaze going, but he had a knife and could have whittled some shavings to light the polypore which would have provided enough heat to ignite something larger.
Don't like any of these? Well, send in your own suggestion. For all suggestions received deemed worthy of publication, we will award the sender with his own Birch Polypore to wear on your belt.
