Saturday, January 01, 2011

Neanderthal diet?

The BBC reports that some researchers have found "cooked plant" residue stuck in Neanderthal teeth, suggesting a strikingly different diet than conventional wisdom help ("Meat, meat, meat for to eat!")
Chemical analysis of their bones suggested they ate little or no vegetables. This perceived reliance on meat had been put forward by some as one of the reasons these humans become extinct as large animals such as mammoths declined. But a new analysis of Neanderthal remains from across the world has found direct evidence that contradicts the chemical studies. Researchers found fossilised grains of vegetable material in their teeth and some of it was cooked.

I can't find details--such as how big the grains were. If they were very large then we have the interesting situation that Neanderthal knew how to harvest and cook but not brush their teeth.

Of course there's always the possibility that the grains were introduced post mortem--I've heard reports of cannibalism with Neanderthals. If they did eat veggies, somebody has some explaining to do with the chemical studies. Note to reader--beware of vast inferences drawn from a single result. Such as, for instance, descriptions of relationships between animals based on genetic analysis. You never see the assumptions that went into the analysis, so you and I aren't in a position to find possible problems. Only a cross-check with some other different kind of analysis can validate the results.

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