Neanderthals cooked and ate vegetables

[Turborama]

Source: BBC

Neanderthals cooked and ate plants and vegetables, a new study of Neanderthal remains reveals.

By Pallab Ghosh | December 27 2010 Last updated at 20:44 GMT

Researchers in the US have found grains of cooked plant material in their teeth.

The study is the first to confirm that the Neanderthal diet was not confined to meat and was more sophisticated than previously thought. The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The popular image of Neanderthals as great meat eaters is one that has up until now been backed by some circumstantial evidence. Chemical analysis of their bones suggested they ate little or no vegetables.

This perceived reliance on meat had been put forward by some as one of the reasons these humans become extinct as large animals such as mammoths declined due to an Ice Age. But a new analysis of Neanderthal remains from across the world has found direct evidence that contradicts the chemical studies. Researchers found fossilised grains of vegetable material in their teeth and some of it was cooked.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12071424

[flvegan]

1. Veg*ns v Omnivores, round 1.

Go!

:popcorn:

[AlbertCat]

5. Veg*ns v Omnivores, round 1.

There is no fight. Anatomically we are clearly omnivores. That's all there is to it.

[flvegan]

6. Is this where you tell me about

your awesome canines?

:eyes:

[roguevalley]

35. we can chose what we want to eat now but a large jump in our

evolution came about when we began to eat meat. It helped us make the jump. As for the Neandertal people, I love them. They had bigger, waay bigger brains than we do, they were the ones who understood that life beyond this one existed, they buried their dead with artifacts, flowers and emotion when ours were just left on the ground and they were remarkable all around. It's too bad that the first people to find them and display them had the usual nineteenth century prejudices and put them together wrong. They also had an injured man skeleton that should have been an admirable indication of their life. He was older and injured younger. They took care of him. God save the Neanderthal people from the dumbass view they have, including among many scientists.

[Towlie]

13. Right! They ate whatever they could digest, just like most other apes, including us.

Of course I'm referring to living in an environment where you can't be picky.

[Kurovski]

17. Boy, I sure do love your end sign, or whatever...

"Have you heard about the new Moderate cologne? It's half roses and half cow manure."

[JDPriestly]

24. Difficult to survive on vegetables when you live in a cave in

a very cold, snowy climate. Meat can be preserved and eaten in winter. Some fruits and a few root vegetables also can. You might find a few berries under the snow, but not that many. Meat, on the other hand, can be slaughtered and cooked all winter long. Clearly we have survived as omnivores.

Don't get me wrong. I love, love, love my vegetables. I just realize that the Germans used to live with their cows practically in the next room for a reason. It was cold outside.

[JI7]

2. it seems like we are learning a lot about neanderthals these days

[Kurovski]

18. You mean like...

the tea plarty and truthers and stuff?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

31. Some people have known this stuff for 30 years..

I'm constantly amazed that I read so much of this was in Jean Auel's novels. She had Neanderthals speaking, socializing and in general being very intelligent beings.. all things we have since learned to be true. Even her descriptions of interbreeding may turn out to be far more possible than we thought.

[alex cross]

3. And studies of Homo Sapiens suggest they survived because

of a high protein diet, consisting of large quantities of meat, that contributed to the rapid increase in the size of their brains. Maybe that's why the Neanderthals were assimilated.

[bhikkhu]

9. If you read the article, the portion of vegetables was very low

the point of the article was that it is news that they ate vegetables at all, and there is still little doubt that meat was the main course. Also, cranial size was fully developed in both species in the time period spoken of in the study.

In any case, too much protein causes liver failure and a host of other problems, including infertility in women. About the only population that maintained a primarily meat diet in near contemporary times are the Inuit, and even they were known to strip the partially-digested vegetable matter from the intestines of animals, for a healthy addition to their diets. Its likely that both homo sapiens and neandertals ate enough vegetable matter to stay healthy and promote fertility.

[enlightenment]

15. Interesting - although the bit about

stripping partially-digested vegetable matter came close to turning my stomach. I understand the concept and appreciate the inventiveness . . . but uff dah!

[rayofreason]

19. Think of it..

as Inuit Haggis.

[enlightenment]

37. Yeah, I tried that thought . . .

but having actually made haggis, I know that what's in it is not 'partially-digested vegetable matter'. Not that pluck and suet is much better, but at least it's not partially digested.

Haggis is pretty good, really - once you get past the package it's cooked in . . . !

[AlbertCat]

4. Neanderthals cooked and ate vegetables

... and Neanderthal children complained.....

[brooklynite]

38. "Think of all the poor Cro-Magnons starving in China..."

[Sheepshank]

7. luckily they didn't have to use algebra

and they still survived....oh wait.

[Botany]

8. hence their green color

[elleng]

10. broccoli???

;)

[brewens]

11. The uncooked plant material was primitive floss. They truly

were more advanced than we ever gave them credit for.:)

[formercia]

32. I wonder if the toothpick had been invented yet?

because, it's obvious the toothbrush had not been.

[devilgrrl]

12. What a bunch of knuckle-dragging hippy pansies.

:silly:

[Chef Eric]

14. I'm gonna be around my vegetables

I'm gonna chow down my vegetables
I love you most of all
My favorite vege-table

If you brought a big brown bag of them home
I'd jump up and down and hope
you'd toss me a carrot

Chomp chomp chomp chomp do-do-do do-do-do

I know that you'll feel better
When you send us
Your letter an'
Tell us the name of your
Your favorite vege-table

-Brian Wilson

[Kurovski]

16. Cool!

I wonder if they had a nice carrot cake recipe?

[ronnie624]

20. Fascinating. Thanks for posting.

This part definitely has a ring of irony:

This study is the latest to suggest that, far from being brutish savages, Neanderthals were more like us than we previously thought.

[Kurovski]

22. Well now, we can go to Yale

to properly disguise our brutish savagery. So we're way ahead on that count.

[Zax2me]

21. But where did they stand on human rights?

Domestic violence?
I mean, while we are painting a picture of their great respect to have possibly not eaten a lot of meat for what had to be animal rights progress, let's address other possible issues.

[ronnie624]

23. Where did Homo sapiens stand on those issues back then? n/t

[truthisfreedom]

25. Just because the rethugs can cook

doesn't mean they aren't wrong for America.

[tomm2thumbs]

26. so easy, even a caveman can do it

[woo me with science]

27. I like this post.

It is somehow calming in the middle of the rest of LBN.

[xchrom]

28. very interesting. nt

[Javaman]

29. See? not all repukes are just meat eating tools. nt

[LiberalEsto]

30. Steamed, sauteed, boiled?

Inquiring minds want to know

[Cal33]

33. Most likely cooked over a fire. In order to boil, a metal pot or pan

is needed. I don't think they had them yet. :o)

[Igel]

34. Better summary.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/dec/27/neanderthals-cooked-diet-us-research

I found the BBC's to be vaguely incoherent (in the Halliday/Hasan sense of the word).

Then again, you get that from the first sentence: "Researchers in the US have found grains of cooked plant material in their teeth." You have to reach back rather far for the referent to "their" (the easy choice is "researchers", in which case the news is that archeologists have poor dental hygiene). Then they never actually say who the researchers are. Or that the grains are starch and not, as you'd get assuming the article coheres, pollen.

[roguevalley]

36. since they were hunter gatherers they probably ate as they

walked, picking and eating plants as they went. Also, it would be logical and probable that women would be the ones gathering and keeping food stuffs as they went as men would be organized in hunting parties. so my 'logical' conclusion would be: Women invented agriculture, having the most experience with plants and they also invented medicine having to take said plants and make all the boo-boos go away. Yet, one would be hard pressed to find evidence anywhere since we all know homo sapien sapiens invented everything. :)

[hayu_lol]

39. Metal pots/pans are not necessary for cooking...

clay vessels are good and so are tightly-woven baskets. Many of our native tribes used tightly-woven baskets for cooking. Try it with paper on your stove...works just fine.

Jane Auel did a tremendous amount of research before writing her books.

As to Neandertal, a pair of noted anthropologist/writer authors wrote a book a few years ago about a DNA cloned Neandertal. Book is titled: RAISING ABEL. Worth looking up and reading.

W.Michael Gear/Kathleen O'Neal Gear

http://www.gear-gear.com/ra.shtml

[sofa king]

40. ...while humans cooked and ate Neandertals.

[LeftishBrit]

41. 'And that's why they're all dead!" says little Johnny

[formercia]

42. Opportunistic vegetable eaters

as with any foragers, they probably ate what was in season at the time.

[PfcHammer]

43. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

[Old Troop]

44. Have you ever thought about how we came to eat the things we do?

I like to think of OG, the cave person, seeing a bison and thinking, "hmmm, that thing is huge and look at those nasty horns. Guess I'll eat it." Or looking at a lobster and thinking, "god that's ugly; think I'll eat it."

[Taverner]

45. Neanderthal DNA is inside us

[daleo]

46. Neanderthals were big brained

Maybe they invented spaceships and got the hell off the Earth, to get away from the neighbors (us). Given the further behavior of the human race (war, genocide, poverty, prejudice) it would have been a sensible move.