Neanderthals Cooked Surprisingly Complex Meals
Charred food remnants provide insight into 70,000-year-old dietary practices
Jacquelyne Germain
Staff contributor
November 30, 2022
A view of the Shanidar Cave in Iraq’s Zagros Mountains, where some of the charred plant remains were discovered Courtesy of Chris Hunt
Prehistoric cooking may have been more complex than we thought, according to a study published last week in the journal Antiquity.
Researchers analyzed charred food remains at two locations—the Shanidar Cave in Iraq’s Zagros Mountains and the Franchthi Cave in Greece—to gain insight into how Neanderthals and early modern humans prepared food. They found evidence of cooking involving a variety of ingredients, processes and deliberate decisions.
“Our findings are the first real indication of complex cooking—and thus of food culture—among Neanderthals,” Chris Hunt, an expert in cultural paleoecology at Liverpool John Moores University and coordinator of the excavation, tells the Guardian’s Linda Geddes.
At the Shanidar Cave, the researchers analyzed food remains from approximately 70,000 years ago, when Neanderthals lived at the site. They also analyzed remains from around 40,000 years ago, when early modern humans lived there. At the Franchthi Cave, they analyzed food remnants that early modern humans who were hunter-gatherers consumed some 12,000 years ago.
More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/neanderthals-cooked-up-complex-and-tasty-meals-70000-years-ago-180981207/
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