New research shows a secret ingredient in the Neanderthal diet

Scientists thought for a long time that Neanderthals were enthusiastic meat eaters. Based on the chemical analysis of Neanderthals -it seemed to have as much meat as APEX predators such as lions and hyenas. But as a group, Hominine – these are Neanderthals, our species and other extinct close relatives – are not specialized meat eaters. Rather, they are all more feeding and also eat a lot of planting foods.

It is possible for people to live from a very carnivorous diet. In fact, many traditional Nordjäger collectors like the Inuit mainly lived from pet food. But Hominine simply cannot tolerate the high protein values that large predators can consume. When people eat as much protein as hypercarnivore over long periods without consuming enough other nutrients, this can lead to protein poisoning – a weak, also fatal illness that is historically known as “rabbit hunger”.

So what could explain the chemical signatures found in Neanderthal bones that indicate that they have eaten healthy tons of meat?

I am an anthropologist who uses elements such as nitrogen to examine the nutrition of our very old ancestors. New research work that my colleagues and I carried out indicate a secret ingredient in the Neanderthal diet, which could explain what was going on: maggot.

Isotope relationships show what an animal ate

The conditions of different elements in the animals bones can give an insight into what they have eaten during everyday life. Isotopes are alternative forms of the same element with slightly different masses. Nitrogen has two stable isotopes: nitrogen-14, the more common shape and nitrogen-15, the heavier, less frequent shape. Scientists refer to the ratio of nitrogen-15 to nitrogen-14 as δ¹⁵n and measure it in one unit called Permil.

When they go up to the food chain, organisms have relatively more of the isotope nitrogen-15. For example, grass has a very low δ¹⁵n value. A herbivorer accumulates the nitrogen-15, which he eats through grass, so that his own body has a slightly higher δ¹⁵N value. Meat -eating animals have the highest nitrogen ratio in a food network. The nitrogen-15 of your prey concentrates in your body.

By analyzing stable nitrogen isotope conditions, we can reconstruct the diets of Neanderthals and early on homo sapiens During the late Pleistocene, which ran to 129,000 years ago. Fossils of different locations tell the same story – these hominins have high δ¹⁵n values. High -δ¹⁵n values would normally be placed together with hypercarnivors such as cave lions and hyenas, the diet of which is more than 70% meat, at the top of the food network.

But maybe something else about your diet has inflated the δ¹⁵n values of Neanderthals.

Covering of the Neanderthal menu

We suspected that maggots could have been a different potential source for enriched nitrogen-15 in the Neanderthal diet.

Mids that are fluids can be a high -fat food source. They are inevitable after you have killed another animal that is slightly in large numbers and vividly advantageous.

In order to examine this option, we have used a data record that was originally created for a completely different purpose: a forensic anthropology project that was concentrated on how nitrogen has been freely freed the time since death.

I originally had modern muscle tissue samples and associated maggots in the forensic anthropology center of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to understand how the nitrogen values change during decomposition after death.

While the data can support modern forensic death investigations, we implemented it in our current study to test a completely different hypothesis. We found that stable nitrogen isotope values with the decomposition of muscle tissue in the range of -0.6 permil and 7.7 permil increase slightly.

This increase is more dramatic for maggots that feed on the decomposing tissue: from 5.4 Permil to 43.2 Permil. In order to put the Maggot values in the right perspective, scientists δ¹⁵N values for Pleistocene -plant -eating on an area between 0.9 permil and 11.2 permil. Maden measure up to four times higher.

Our investigations suggest that the high δ¹⁵n values observed in late Pleistocene Hominine can be inflated through the year-round consumption of ¹⁵N-enriched maggots that were presented in dried, frozen or frozen animal feed.

Cultural practices form diet

In 2017, my employee John Speth proposed that the high δ¹⁵n values in Neanderthals were due to the consumption of lazy or rotting meat, based on historical and cultural evidence in the North -Arctic.

Traditionally, the indigenous peoples almost generally considered a thoroughly valley, Maggot -related animal foods as extremely desirable dishes and not as hunger. In fact, many such people routinely allowed and often deliberately allowed animal food to decompose to the point where they crawl with maggots, in some cases even to liquefy.

This rotting food would inevitably spend a stench that is so overwhelming that early European discoverers, fur fallers and missionaries became sick. But indigenous peoples regarded food to eat as well, even as a delicacy. When asked how they could tolerate the disgusting stench, they simply replied: “We don’t eat the smell.”

The cultural practices of the Neanderthals, similar to those of the indigenous peoples, could be the answer to the secret of their high δ¹⁵n values. Ancient hominine battles, warehouses, preserved, cooked and cultivated a variety of objects. All of these practices enriched their Paleo menu with food in forms that do not consume non -Hominine carnivore. Studies show that δ¹⁵n values for cooked food, lazy muscle tissue of terrestrial and aquatic species and with our study for fly larvae that feed on the decaying tissue are higher.

The high δ¹⁵n values of maggots associated with lazy pet food explain how Neanderthals many other nutritious foods that could only go beyond meat and record δ¹⁵n values that we are used to in hypercarnivores.

We suspect that the high Δ¹⁵n values observed in Neanderthals reflect the routine consumption of high-fat animal tissues and fermented stomach content, a large part of it in a semi-putid or lazy state as well as the inevitable bonus of both lively and dead ¹⁵N-enriched maggots.

What is not yet known

Flying larvae are high -fat, nutrient -rich, ubiquitous and slightly procured insect resource as well as Neanderthals and early homo sapiensSimilar to the youngest Forager, it would have benefited from using them fully. However, we cannot say that maggots alone explain why Neanderthals have such high δ¹⁵n values in their remains.

Some questions about this old diet remain unanswered. How many maggots would someone have to consume in order to increase the δ¹⁵n values above the expected values due to meat meals alone? How do the nutritional advantages of eating maggots change the longer a food stored? Other experimental studies on changes in the δ¹⁵N values of foods that are processed, saved and cooked according to local traditional practices can help us better understand the nutritional practices of our old relatives.

Melanie Beasley is an assistant professor for anthropology at Purdue University.

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