An archaeological excavation of the ancient city of Megiddo in northern Israel. (Credit: The Megiddo Expedition.) (CN) — The Levant was the site of global trade as long ago as 3,700 years, much earlier than previously believed, researchers found in an archaeological excavation of 16 Bronze Age bodies in modern Israel. Philipp Stockhammer, a prehistoric archaeologist at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, and his colleagues analyzed food residues in the ancient corpses’ tooth tartar, also known as dental calculus. In these human fossils, which dated to the second millennium BCE, the scientists saw evidence of turmeric, bananas and soy. “Exotic spices, fruits and oils from Asia had thus reached the Mediterranean several centuries, in some cases even millennia, earlier than had been previously thought,” Stockhammer said in a statement. “This is the earliest direct evidence to date of turmeric, banana and soy outside of South and East Asia.”