Topic Early man ate his Vegs
WASHINGTON: Neanderthals were not just meat-eaters, say researchers who believe the ancient near-human creatures cooked a variety of plants.
Researchers in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum examined the dental calculus — the layer of hardened plaque — in seven fossilised teeth of Neanderthal individuals whose remains were unearthed at archeological sites in Iraq and Belgium. They found grains from plants, including a type of wild grass and traces of roots and tubers, trapped in plaque build-up.
Many of the particles “had undergone physical changes that matched experimentally cooked starch grains, suggesting that Neanderthals controlled fire much like early modern humans”, the researchers wrote in a paper that was published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Stone artifacts have not provided evidence that Neanderthals used tools to grind plants, suggesting they did not practise agriculture, but the new research indicates they cooked and prepared plants for eating.
“These lines of evidence indicate Neanderthals were investing their time and labour in preparing plant foods in ways that increased their edibility and nutritional quality.”
The discovery challenges the theory that Neanderthals were largely carnivores who became extinct, in part, because they couldn’t compete with early humans, who had a varied diet and were better nourished.
The squat, low-browed Neanderthals lived in parts of Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East for 170,000 years but all evidence of them disappears about 28,000 years ago.
Original article:
Dec 2010
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