Exposed! Scientists reveals what else ate human ancestors

Scientists are constantly studying our ancestors to answer many questions about their lives. One of the tools that helps in this is the isotopic analysis of bones: so, thanks to him it was possible to find out what most often ate Neanderthals. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to experts, the main diet of Neanderthals consisted of meat of herbivorous animals — deer and horses. To do this, anthropologists have studied the remains of the Neanderthal using the latest method of CSIA: he gave information about the origin of some chemicals. Exploring the isotopic composition of nitrogen, the scientists came to the conclusion that carnivorous fraction of heavy isotope of nitrogen higher than that of herbivores. Measurement of this indicator in Neanderthals (from the tooth) showed that they ate the meat of animals.

This is indicated by the high proportion of nitrogen-15 in the tissues of the Neanderthal, which indicates that it was carnivorous. What exactly did you eat? Scientists agreed that mainly for Breakfast, lunch and dinner he had reindeer and horses. This refutes an earlier study that Neanderthals ate rotten meat to increase the content of nitrogen-15. Also, scientists do not exclude that the food was pre-processed. The question of when a person began to use fire for cooking, is still the subject of heated debate. Some scientists believe that it happened 1.8 million years ago. Traces of the use of fish or meat of predators were not found.

Earlier analysis of the Tartar on the ancient tooth of Neanderthals showed that they could adapt to different types of food, and also revealed the presence of deposits of inedible plant origin, the remains of butterfly wings and limb parts of other ancient insect species. Therefore, it is difficult to determine the diet of “ancient people”.

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