Neanderthals were probably Maggot-Mucan, Not Hyper-Carnivors

Neanderthals may not have been the hyper-carnivors we were about. It has been claimed, based on nitrogen isotope conditions in their bones, that our old relatives ate a little beyond meat. But these conditions can also be explained by a more balanced all -encompassing diet that included a lot of maggots as well as plant -based food.

“Lots of Maggots are these easily scoopable, collectibles, nutritious resource,” says Melanie Beasley at Purdue University, Indiana.

There is plenty of evidence that they were eaten in many communities in the past, and they are still consumed in some places today, she says. Some reindeer hunters look certain maggots as a treat they are actively cultivating, for example, while Casu Martzu, a cheese containing living maggots, is one of the delicacy in Sardinia.

Nitrogen has been stable isotopes, nitrogen-14 and nitrogen-15. That teeth dense is more likely to be lost from living organizations than the heavy one, so when matter moves food chains, the ratio of nitrogen-15 and nitrogen-14 increases.

Do you look at the isotope ratio in collagen inside fossil bones can? But when scientists began to look at the relationship in the Neanderthals, they found something surprising: even higher conditions than those seen in lions and hyenas. “Then there was this tale that Neanderthals we speak these hyper-carnivors very focused on hunting for big games,” says Beasley.

But many scientists buy this idea. For one there, the bones of Homo sapiens Living in prehistoric times has similar conditions – and these people couldn’t have survived on lean meat alone. “It’s actually not physically possible,” says Beasley. “You die from what early explorers called ‘Rabbit -Sult’.”

Issu is that if a person’s diet is too rich in protein, their body cannot crush all the toxic collapse product, such as ammonia.

There is now also level of direct evidence that Neanderthals also ate plants, for example from studies of their tooth calculation. So why was their nitrogen-15 relationships so high?

Back in 2017, John Speth at the University of Michigan suggested it could admire Neanderthal’s stored meat and ate it later in a rotten state. When meat rats are gases such as ammonia released, which should result in nitrogen-15 enrichment.

At that time, Beasley applied to investigate at “Body Farm” at the University of Tennessee, where human kadivers studied asy decay to help with crime scenalysis. She discovered that she could test Speth’s idea along with forensic research – and while she was at it, she also looked at Maggots in the bodies.

Together with Speth and Julie Lesnik at Wayne State University, Michigan, Beasley found that nitrogen isotopes do Incree as muscle tissue rats, but only by a modest amnt. However, there is a much larger leap seen in maggots of different kinds that feed on the corps.

These are just initial results, but they show that it is not the only possible explanation of isotope conditions in the Neanderthals and antique to eat a diet that is very high in meat Homo sapiensSays Beasley. She believes that these conditions are probably due to a combination of factors – storage, processing and cooking of meat as well as the consumption of maggots.

“This is an exciting new study, and I think it goes a long way to the feeling of the strange results that have come out of isotope studies in the Neanderthals and other stonehominins in the last few decades,” says Herman Pontzer at Duke University Carolina.

“I think the evidence here is pretty concentrating that consumption of maggots and similar larvae explains the” Hyper-Carnivore “signal we have seen in previous fossil isot work,” he says.

The work also adds the evidence that a so-called palaeo diet should include rotten meat and maggots, Beasley says. “All the people who want to go real ‘Palaeo’, they have to start thinking of fermenting their meat and letting the flies access them.”

Neanderthals, old people and basement art: France

Embark on has captivating day through time as you explore key Neanderthal and upper palaeolithic sites in southern France, from Bordeaux to Montpellier, with New Scientist’s Kate Douglas.