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The oldest known Neanderthal faeces, uncovered in Spain, shows that cavemen ate not only meat but vegetables too, according to a new study.
The discovery was made at the archeological site of El Salt, where researchers have found signs that Neanderthals lived some 45,000-60,000 years ago.
The study in the journal PLOS ONE is the first to analyse faeces in an attempt to show precisely what kinds of foods our long-extinct kin were eating.
Scientists dug into the sediment and ground the samples to a powder for analysis at a sophisticated Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) lab.
Ainara Sistiaga, a visiting researcher at the MIT, and her team of researchers said that fossilized human feces are the perfect evidence “because you are sure that it was ingested,” reported BBC.
Sistiaga went on to explain that “This molecular fossil is perfect to try to know the proportion of both food sources in a Neanderthal meal.”
The researchers believe that the cavemen ate anything that was available within their region. Their meat predominant diet may have been supplemented by root vegetables and berries.
Previous studies on plant micro fossils found in Neanderthal teeth had already partially discredited the assumption that ancient cavemen’s diet consisted purely of meat. Dr. Stephen Buckley, an archaeologist at the New York University, previously reported evidence of plant ingestion among the Neanderthals.
“It will be much harder, now, for people to dig their heels in and try to argue that Neanderthals just ate meat and not plants to any degree,” Dr. Buckley told the BBC.
Agencies/Canadajournal
