by The person who lives on a lake in today’s Germany systematically processes animal carcasses for fat nutrients – essentially lead what scientists describe as a “fat factory” to cook bones to a great extent, according to new research.
Archaeologists revealed the factory by analyzing around 120,000 bone fragments and 16,000 flint tools, which were excavated as Neumark-Nord south of the city of Halle for several years. Excavators found the artifacts together with the proof of fire use.
The researchers believe that Neanderthals, an extinct type of man who, as is well known, lived in this area 125,000 years ago, smashed the cheeky bones into fragments with stone hammers, and then cooked for several hours to extract the fat that swims on the surface and can be shaken up when cooling.
Since this performance includes the planning of Jagden, the transport and storage of carcasses on the immediate food requirement and the fat in an area specially set for the task, the result helps to paint a picture of the organization, the strategy of the group and the deeply ground survival skills.
“This attitude that Neanderthals were stupid – this is another data point that proves something else,” said Wil Roebroeks, Co author and professor of Paleolithic Archeology at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.
A number of archaeological discoveries in recent decades have shown that Neanderthals were smarter when it suggests her original brutal stereotype. The old people lived all over Eurasia and disappeared 40,000 years ago, and earlier studies showed that they have put together yarn and glue, engraved bones and cave walls and jewelry from Eagle Talons.
Details in the new studies suggest that Neanderthals may also be unexpectedly demanding in their nutritional approach.
The researchers believe that Neanderthals have smashed animal bones into fragments before cooking them to extract the nutrients. – Kindler/Leiza monepos
Danger of protein poisoning
According to the study, the Neanderthals, who live at the German location over a period of 300 years, also understood the nutritional value of the bone they have produced.
A small amount of fat is an essential part of a healthy, balanced diet. The substance was even more important for hunters and collectors such as Neanderthals, who were probably heavily dependent on animal food.
A diet that is dominated by lean meat and is poor in fatty can lead to a weak and sometimes fatal form of malnutrition, in which the capacity of liver enzymes is impaired to the breakdown of the protein and to eliminate excess nitrogen, the researchers found in their work. The disease known as protein poisoning today made a call for the early European discoverers of North America as “rabbit poisoning” or “Mal de Caribou”.
Hunter collectors such as Neanderthals with average body weight between 50 kilograms and 80 kilograms (£ 110 and £ 175) should have kept their consumption of food protein under 300 grams (about 10 ounces) per day in order to avoid the disease. This is around 1,200 calories – a level of recording that, according to research, is far above the daily energy requirement. As a result, the Neanderthals probably had to obtain the remaining calories from a non -protein source either fat or carbohydrate.
Meat cuts from animal muscles contain very little fat that make bones – contain the mark and other adipose tissue, even if an animal is malnourished – a more important resource.
The researchers found that the overwhelming majority of the remains of 172 individual large animals came, including horses, deer and Aurochs, large cow -like creatures that have now died out. The Neanderthals had selected the longest bones that contained most of the mark, as the study found.
A AI created an impression of what the Fat Factory site looked like 125,000 years ago. – Scherjon/Leiza monepos
A shot acorn, a pinch of sloe plum
Just like the Neanderthals processed the bones, according to the authors of the study, it is not clear. The old people probably made containers or pots made of birch bark, animal skins or other parts of the body such as stomach line, fill them with water and hang them up over a fire, said Roebroeks.
Neanderthals could have consumed the fat that they created as a “greasy broth”, to which plants were added to both taste and for the nutritional value, suggested co -author Geoff Smith, a senior researcher in zoo archeology at the University of Reading. The charred remains of hazelnut, acorn and sloe plum were also found during the excavations, he noticed.
“These were not simple hunters and collectors who came during the day to Kamen-Sie were master planners who looked ahead, organized complex tasks and squeezed every last calorie from their surroundings,” said Smith.
According to Ludovic Slimak, archaeologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, the results are “exciting”. Slimak was not involved in the study.
“After all, they offer a clear archaeological confirmation of what many of us have long suspected that Neanderthals have developed not only within the bone lipids but also specific strategies to extract and process them,” said Slimak, the author of the “last Neanderthals”, which will be published later in English this year.
“This fits closely with the wider archaeological record that Neanderthals, as a highly qualified big game hunter, shows with a sophisticated feeling of ecological adaptation,” he added.
From this time of the Stone Age, the Neumark-Nord location is “the best example of the end of bone slices,” said Bruce Hardy, the professor of anthropology by J. Kenneth Smail at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio,. Hardy was also not involved in research.
“The combination of evidence that was presented here at Neumark-Nord is impressive,” said Hardy. “It can certainly represent the smoldering weapon or the smoldering bone broth of the Neanderthal bone frequency.”
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