Scientists for a long time believed that the neanderthals were carnivorous eager. Based on the chemical analysis of neanderthal remains, it seemed that they fed on so much meat as top predators such as lions and hyenas.
But, as a group, hominids – namely Neanderthals, our species and other extinct close relatives – are not specialized carnivores. Instead, They are more omnivoresalso consuming a lot of plant foods.
It is possible for humans to subsist with a very carnivorous diet. In fact, many traditional northern hunters, such as Inuit, subsisting mainly from animal foods.
But hominids simply do not tolerate the consumption of high protein levels that large predators achieve. If humans consume as much protein as hyperconivores during long periods without consuming enough nutrients, it can protein – A debilitating and even lethal condition, historically known as “hunger of the rabbit”.
So what may explain the chemical signatures found in the bones of the Neanderthals, which seem to suggest that they consumed tons of meat in a healthy way?
A new suggests a secret ingredient in the Neanderthal diet that can explain what was happening: As larvae.
The isotopic proportions reveal what an animal ate
The proportions of various elements in animal bones can provide information about what they ate in life. Isotopes are alternative forms of the same element with slightly different masses.
Nitrogen has two stable isotopes: nitrogen-14, the most abundant form, and nitrogen-15, the heaviest and least common form. Scientists denote the azot-15 proportion to nitrogen-14 such as Δ¹⁵n and measure it in a unit called Allow.
As you go up in the food chain, organisms have relatively more of the nitrogen isotope-15. The grass, for example, has a very low δ¹⁵n value. A herbivorous accumulates the nitrogen-15 that consumes eating herb, so its own body has a slightly higher δ¹⁵n value.
Carnivorous animals have the highest proportion of nitrogen in a food web; The nitrogen-15 of its prey focuses on its bodies.
In analyzing the proportions of stable nitrogen isotopes, we can rebuild the diets of neanderthals and the primitive homo sapiens during the late Pleistocene, which lasted from 11 700 to 129 000 years.
The fossils of various archaeological sites tell the same story – these hominids have high values of Δ¹⁵n. High values of Δ¹⁵n would normally place them at the top of the food web, along with the hyperconivores, such as the ladies and hyenas, whose diet is composed of More than 70% meat.
But perhaps something else in his diet was inflating the Δ¹⁵n of the Neanderthals.
Unravel the Neanderthal menu
Scientists suspect that larvae could have been a Potential source different from nitrogen-15 enriched in the Neanderthal diet. The flies of flies can be a source rich in fat. They are inevitable after the slaughter of another animal, easily collected in large quantities and nutritionally beneficial.
To investigate this possibility, they used a data set originally created for a very different purpose: a forensic anthropology project focused on how nitrogen could help to estimate time since death.
Samples of modern muscle tissue and associated larvae had been collected at the University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center in Knoxville to understand how nitrogen values change during decomposition after death.
Although data can help modern forensic investigations into death in the current study have redirected them to test a very different hypothesis. Found that the values of stable nitrogen isotopes increase modestly as muscle tissue decomposes, varying between -0.6 per thousand and 7.7 per thousand.
This increase is more drastic in larvae that feed on decaying tissue: from 5.4 per thousand to 43.2 per thousand. To place the values of the larvae in a perspective, scientists estimate that the values of Δ¹⁵n for the herbivores of the Plistocene vary between 0.9 per thousand and 11.2 per thousand. The larvae are measuring values until almost four times higher.
The investigation suggests that the high values of Δ¹⁵N observed in the hominids of the upper pleistocene can be inflated by the annual consumption of ¹⁵n enriched larvae found in foods of dry, frozen or stored animal origin.
Cultural practices shape the diet
In 2017, John Speth proposed that the high values of Δ¹⁵n in the Neanderthals were due to consumption of painted meat or decayingbased on historical and cultural evidence of north arctic forage diets.
Traditionally, indigenous peoples saw almost universally foods of completely rotted animals and infested with larvae like highly desirable foodsnot rations for hunger. In fact, many of these peoples allowed routinely, and often intentionally, that animal foods decomposed to the point of being infested with larvae, in some cases even beginning to liquefy.
This decomposition food inevitably exuded such an unbearable odor that the first explorers, fur hunters, and European missionaries were sick. However, indigenous peoples considered these foods good to eat, even a delicacy. When asked how they could tolerate the nauseating odor, they simply responded: “We don’t eat the smell“.
The cultural practices of neanderthals, similar to those of indigenous peoples, may be the answer to the mystery of their high values of Δ¹⁵n.
Ancient hominids slaughtered, stored, kept, cooked and cultivated a variety of articles. All of these practices have enriched their paleo menu with foods in shapes that non -hominid carnivorous do not consume. The investigation shows that the values of Δ¹⁵N are higher for cooked foods, Putrid muscle tissue of terrestrial and aquatic species and, with the new study, for fly larvae that feed on decomposition tissue.
The high values of Δ¹⁵N of the larvae associated with painted animal foods help explain how neanderthals may have included Many other nutritious foods beyond meatwhile registered the values of Δ¹⁵n we are used to seeing in hyperconivores.
It is suspected that the high values of Δ¹⁵N observed in neanderthals reflect the routine consumption of fatty animals and fermented stomach content, many of them in a semi-contempted or putrid state, along with the inevitable bonus of ¹⁵n, live and dead larvae.
What is not yet known
The fly larvae are an insectivore fat -rich, dense nutrient, omnipresent and easily obtained, and both Neanderthals and the first homo sapiens, as well as recent foragers, will have benefited from taking their utmost out of them. But we cannot say that the larvae alone explain why the Neanderthals have such high values of Δ¹⁵n in their remains.
Several questions about this ancestral diet remain unanswered. How many larvae would need to consume to justify an increase in δ¹⁵n values above expected values due only to meat consumption? How do the nutritional benefits of larvae consumption change the longer a food is stored? More experimental studies on changes in Δ¹⁵N values of processed, stored and cooked foods following traditional indigenous practices can help us better understand the eating practices of our ancestors.
