Chewing Gum, the Bane of School Teachers Everywhere, More Ancient Than Previously Thought

Old school teachers may not exactly be pleased to here this but chewing gum has been around for a lot longer than previously thought. While gum may be a popular way to annoy teachers and particularly janitors who clean the sticky substance of the rugs in the schools, the earliest gums predate classrooms.

Neolithic man discovered something that has long been known on the East Coast long before anyone thought of making birch beer. That is, that the bark of a birch tree is chewable. Gums made from a tar derived from the bark were used to treat gum infections and other birch byproducts were used as a type of glue for early products.

Students working on an archaeological dig in Finland unearthed the piece of ancient chewing gum and were even more excited to find out the several thousand year old wad bore teeth marks. It may be doubtful that this find will significantly impact bubble or chewing gum manufacturers today, as the rubber derivatives have only been around for since the nineteenth century. The first chewing gum went on sale in the state of Maine in 1848 and was marketed under the label as "Pure Spruce Gum." Various incarnations of chewing gum would appear and in 1928 the future of gum would be altered forever.

The name Walter Diemer may not be familiar to most people, but practically every person in the United States has used his invention at one time or another. While experimenting with different Gum recipes, he found one that resulted in gum that was less sticky, but more elastic. Deimer, who never patented his invention, worked for the Fleer Chewing Gum company. The invetion of bubble gum itself was accidental, but Deimer noticed the bubbles that could more easily be produced by his new recipe and took a 5 pound block to sell at a local market which sold completely out of the new product in an afternoon.

The gum we know and love or loathe today has certainly come a long way from the birch bark derivative found and chewed by the neolithic man found in Finland and certainly, we don't chew mastiche, a gum made from the bark of the mastic tree as did the ancient Greeks, but we still put something to chew in our mouths from time to time. It would seem that the urge to do so comes from our ancient ancestors. Annoying old school teachers may be a much older habit than previously thought.

Sources:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6954562.stm

http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/gum.htm

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/bubblegum.htm