Neanderthals Feasted on Seafood, Seabirds, Perhaps Even Dolphins – The New York Times

Neanderthals are regularly portrayed chowing down on nice meals and woolly rhino ribs. But an diagnosis of their leftovers from a coastal collapse Portugal suggests fish and mollusks claimed a varied put on their Paleolithic palates.

“All of us own that image of the earlier Neanderthal that eats a total bunch meat,” said Filipa Rodrigues, an archaeologist on the College of Lisbon and creator of a paper published Thursday in science. “Now, we own this unique point of view that they explored the marine resources like Homo sapiens did.”

Archaeologists own beforehand discovered proof that Neanderthals ate, serene and wore jewelry long-established from shellfish. But proof they consumed huge quantities of fish has been lacking. Some scientists own argued Neanderthals didn’t own the skill or wit to recall fish as their Homo sapiens contemporaries did in Africa, and can own lost out on inspiring aquatic animals filthy rich in fatty acids that would possibly per chance well even own aided with mind style.

But deep in Cueva de Figueira Brava, which housed Neanderthals about 100,000 years within the past, Dr. Rodrigues and her colleagues own uncovered greater than 560 fish bones, as properly as stays from clams, mussels, crabs, waterfowl, seabirds, seals and dolphins. The findings counsel Neanderthals forged a wide accumulate to add sea creatures to their dinner menus, and the researchers assure it reveals the habits of the frequent species changed into linked to in vogue folks that lived on the time.

“On this one tiny window of visibility, they point to that Neanderthals ate quantities of seafood,” said Peter Rowley-Conwy, an archaeologist from Durham College, who changed into no longer serious about the ogle.

When Neanderthals occupied Figueira Brava, it changed into a pair of mile from the water. Right this moment the cave, some 20 miles south of Lisbon, is correct on the hover. The positioning had been beforehand explored and identified within the 1980s as a Neanderthal shelter, nevertheless no fish stays had been uncovered.

Dr. Rodrigues and her team excavated the cave from 2010 through 2013. To receive to their point of curiosity, they went through one amongst three cave entrances proper into a room after which squeezed through a narrow passageway into one other, extraordinary smaller room. To suit throughout the channel, Dr. Rodrigues had to stretch one arm straight above her head and put the more than a few at her side and originate “crawling like a worm.”

Her puny and damp destination provided runt reduction.

“I changed into within the fetal put every day,” Dr. Rodrigues said. “It’s no longer that you simply would possibly per chance mediate to face up or stretch your legs.”

Inside of, she labored alongside João Zilhão, an archaeologist from the College of Barcelona and lead creator of the ogle, scraping away and collecting sediments. The two had been in most cases joined by a third researcher, nevertheless by no formulation a fourth since the put changed into too tight. They’d widened an existing hole within the cave wall that led start air, which allow them to receive supplies and bring bags paunchy of sediments to varied team individuals for diagnosis. The sediment layers formed between 86,000 and 106,000 years within the past.

Sooner or later in 2012, Dr. Zilhão made an intelligent receive.

“I changed into going throughout the sediment with my trowel and all of a surprising I spotted one thing and went ‘Wow! Feels like a fish vertebra,’” Dr. Zilhão said. He saved it, shimmied throughout the passageway and returned to the team so he would possibly per chance well also display hide the coin-dimension object to Sónia Gabriel, a zooarchaeologist on the Portuguese Ministry of Custom.

“When he came out he changed into like ‘Oh glance at this vertebra. Is this a mammal vertebra?’” she said. “And I changed into like, ‘No, no that’s a fish vertebra — It’s a shark!’”

They later discovered shark teeth belonging to a remark species, which suggested the Neanderthals feasted on a buffet of aquatic animals. The sediment contained bones belonging to eels, morays, conger, mullet and sea bream. They furthermore discovered burned and cracked claws belonging to brown crabs and spider crabs, and even sea birds. They said this marine existence would possibly per chance well even own made up about half of of these Neanderthals’ weight loss program, even though they don’t know what changed into caught at as soon as from the sea or scavenged from creatures that washed ashore or obtained trapped in tide swimming pools.

To boot to to the “surf,” they discovered masses of “turf,” corresponding to stays from horses, deer, ibex, aurochs, porcupine and tortoise. Vegetation had been furthermore share of the Neanderthal’s weight loss program as evidenced by pine nuts.

The receive from the Portuguese cave faucets into ongoing scientific debates about the cognitive sophistication of Neanderthals, and how varied the extinct species truly changed into from our earliest fashionable human ancestors.

Dr. Zilhão said he hoped his finding would attend reshape the in vogue image of Neanderthals as wintry-adapted, nice hunting brutes.

“The particular Neanderthals are like what we’ve been ready to display hide at Figueira,” he said. “They are no varied from folks residing within the same atmosphere and the same ambiance 100,000 years within the past in South Africa or 7,000 years within the past proper throughout the river in Portugal.”