Neanderthals Cooked Their Veggies

[Julieanne]

• Matt Kaplan
• 18 July 2012

According to a recent article at Nature.com, Neanderthals, a branch of early humans that went extinct, may not have been the carnivores scientists once thought. Analysis of the plaque on their teeth shows they roasted vegetables and may have used medicinal plants.

The article explains: Neanderthals have long been viewed as meat-eaters. The vision of them as inflexible carnivores has even been used to suggest that they went extinct around 25,000 years ago as a result of food scarcity, whereas omnivorous humans were able to survive. But evidence is mounting that plants were important to Neanderthal diets — and now a study reveals that those plants were roasted, and may have been used medicinally.”

Read more: http://www.nature.com/news/neanderthals-ate-their-greens-1.11030

[highlander]

"Neanderthals have long been viewed as meat-eaters."
The idea that a primate would be 100% carnivore seems illogical to me.

[Julieanne]

It was the fact that they cooked them that surprised me!

[Islander]

There are a lot of misconceptions about Neanderthals, possibly perpetuated from the initial impressions of the first Neanderthal remains ever discovered, of a man crippled by arthritis. For a long time his skeleton was thought to be the norm. Actually, Neanderthals are not entirely extinct; there's a tiny percent of Neanderthal DNA in all of us. And since the discovery of fire dates back at least 800,000 years (and I think I read recently of a discovery in Africa of an even older site), Neanderthals probably did cook their veggies.

[Reesacat]

I dated a Neanderthal once a long time ago....

[highlander]

I dated a Neanderthal once a long time ago....

They're hard to avoid.

[Maurya]

I am convinced that one of my cousins is a Neanderthal.