Before You take a look at my latest post on AncientFoods I would like to announce the start of my new blog Northwest Culinary Adventures. I also have the link on my blogroll. The blogs URL is www.aptkitchen.wordpress.com. This blog will feature some of my own recipes,and some that I find on other sources and want to share with you. In addition My husband and I will visit wineries and go to wine tastings( not always at the wineries themselves) in Oregon and Washington and I will report back. Finally I’ll do some resturant reviews, book reviews , and report on our travels around the Northwest. I hope you will take a look and come back often to this new blog. I will also have some great photos to see!
Thank you so much.
Joanna Linsley-Poe
AncientFoods
Northwest Culinary Adventures
9/16/2011
Topic: Neanderthal and Fish:
The Cueva Bajondillo on Andalusia's southern coast near Malaga contained remains of burned mussel shells Photo: REX
Neanderthal man lived on a diet of seafood in the caves of southern Spain much longer ago than previously thought, new archaeological findings show.
Much as modern day man enjoys tucking into a plateful of seafood paella when visiting the Costa del Sol, Neanderthals living on the Iberian coast 150,000 years ago supplemented their diet with molluscs and marine animals.
Archaeological examination of a cave in Torremolinos unearthed early tools used to crack open shellfish collected off rocks along the Iberian coast and found fossilised remains of the early meals.
The discovery is the earliest of its kind in northern Europe and shows that early man were fish eaters in Europe some 100,000 years earlier than previously thought.
The findings suggest that early coastal cavemen supplemented their hunter/gatherer diet of nuts, fruits and meat from animals such as antelopes and rabbits with seafood.
A team of archaeologists from Seville University and scientists from the National Council for Scientific Investigation (CSIC) published their research this week after a lengthy investigation involving the scientific dating of fossilised remains from the cave.
The Cueva Bajondillo on Andalusia’s southern coast near Malaga contained remains of burned mussel shells and barnacles indicating that Middle Paleolithic hominids had collected and cooked the shellfish for consumption.
The discovery suggests that Neanderthals in Europe and Archaic Homo sapiens in Africa were following parallel behavioural trajectories but with different evolutionary outcomes, the paper claims.
“It provides evidence for the exploitation of coastal resources by Neanderthals at a much earlier time than any of those previously reported,” said Miguel Cortés Sánchez who led the Seville University team.
“The use of shellfish resources by Neanderthals in southern Spain started some 150,000 years ago,” the paper concluded. “It was almost contemporaneous to Pinnacle Point (in South Africa) when shellfishing is first documented in archaic modern humans.”
Original article:
By Fiona Govan, Madrid
3:49PM BST 15 Sep 2011
Ancientfoods 