The Paleolithic Neanderthal Diet Confirmed: Fresh Mammoth Meat

Paleoanthropologists seek to better understand Neanderthals. And specify their diet is one of the ways they use for this purpose. A fine study of the isotopes of collagen residues in Neanderthal fossils confirms the suspicions issued for some time. The Neanderthals ate most of the meat of the large mammals they lived next to.

The disappearance of Neanderthals remains an enigma that always leaves one puzzled. While not only could he hybridize with modern man, he was capable of behaviors as sophisticated as those believed to be unique to Homo sapiens.  And since he does not seem to have had a net evolutionary disadvantage, how can he explain that he has lost the race of survival and evolution, and all the more so since there is no trace of extermination of Neanderthals organized by sapiens?

There are certainly some fundamental differences to explain what happened but we are still looking for them. This is why paleoanthropologists are looking for any additional information. However, recently, several troubling indications have led them to reconsider the diet generally attributed to Neanderthals. There were already some tracks with these remains found in the caves and tools used as well as, of course, fossils of animals testifying to a fauna that was contemporary to them. These elements were all good reasons to think that they should at least feed on mammoth meat and reindeer.

However, at the beginning of XXI, the century science helps in learning more today than it did not allow the prehistorians it a century ago; their vision of the Neanderthals was rudimentary and false on many points. DNA amplification techniques have established that sapiens and Neanderthals have mixed with remains of genetic material found in the found bones of Neanderthals; in the same way, it is possible to use certain isotope measurement techniques to make these fossilized remains talk about Neanderthals' diet.

Previous studies have focused on the composition of collagen, a common protein in animals, in Neanderthal bones. They had come to the conclusion that their diet was mainly meaty but with a small vegetarian component, which was not unlike, of course, that of Homo sapiens. But recently, studies of nitrogen isotopes have caused trouble.

No fish in the Neanderthals diet

The researchers had measured particularly high levels of a certain isotope, leaving room for several interpretations; in particular, Neanderthals ate fish, putrid meat, or even weaned late compared to modern humans. In fact, intersected with other indications, one could even involve cannibalism.

But today, an international team of researchers - of which Jean-Jacques Hublin, professor and director of the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology - is a member, publishes an article in  PNAS  and revisits this debate by using the isotopic data of collagen nitrogen in a new way.

The collagen samples come from the bones of two Neanderthal subjects found in France, respectively in the cave of the Reindeer, in Arcy-sur-Cure and that of the Cottés. Behind this new method used, the idea is based on the fact that we can differentiate diets at the level of differences in nitrogen isotope for the different amino acids forming the protein that is collagen.

The researchers showed that, in both cases, there was actually a trace of a diet with fish, in accordance also with the fact that no trace of fish remains fresh water is found in these two caves. Therefore, the Neanderthal mother of the infant, whose bones were in the cave of the Reindeer (to be precise, the collagen came from a tooth), had a meaty diet and deprived of fish. This is interesting information because, on the contrary, fish was part of the Homo sapiens diet.

Finally, the researchers concluded that Neanderthals massively consumed fresh meat from large mammals, in this case, mammoths, mainly reindeer and horses. This diet, which could contain plants, was even very stable over time, even after the arrival of modern humans in Europe.

WHAT YOU MUST REMEMBER

• Recent analyses of N isotopes in collagen found in Neanderthal remains suggest that they can feed on large quantities of fish or rotting meat.
• New and finer analyzes confirm that the Neanderthal diet was predominantly composed of fresh meat from large mammals such as mammoths or reindeer. The fish should not be on the menu but the plants were not excluded.

Paleolithic Neanderthal diet: mammoth with vegetables

Article by Laurent Sacco published on 2016-03-17

Why did the Neanderthal Man disappear? Should we look for the reason in his diet? Still, it would be necessary to know precisely. Thanks to isotopic chemistry we now know more about the Paleolithic Neanderthals. On the menu: 80% mammoth meat and rhinoceros, plus 20% plants.

The "Paleolithic Diet" is very fashionable but what is the reality? What did humans eat tens of thousands of years ago? The dentition of prehistoric men and the remains of meals give us an idea today but it remains vague, lacking a machine to go back in time. There are still one of this kind discovered in the early XX the century: the isotopic chemistry. This technique provides amazing information.

There are several isotopes of elements such as carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and oxygen. Depending on the physiology of the animals and their diets, their bones and collagen contain particular proportions of these isotopes or others. Oxygen isotopes, for example, have been involved in the debate over the warmth or poïkilothermal character of the dinosaurs and certain marine reptiles that were their contemporaries. These same isotopes also made it possible to determine the way of life of the famous dinosaurs: it was semi-aquatic.

More recently, isotope chemistry has been used to know the diet of British King Richard III. This year, members of the Center for Research on Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment in Tübingen applied it to the study of the diet of the Neanderthals, this cousin of Homo sapiens with whom, the fact is now proven, there were hybridizations.

Neanderthal, a big eater of mammoth meat and rhinoceros

More generally, the researchers looked at collagen found in bones from two sites in Belgium that belonged to Neanderthals and mammoths, bison, bears and cave lions but also to horses and woolly rhinos. All this small world lived from 45,000 to 40,000 years ago. Collagen is an abundant protein in animals, where it is present in cartilage, tendons, skin, and bones.

It was found that the predators of the day mainly fed on prey smaller than them and occupying specific ecological niches But it was not the same for the Neanderthals. Their Paleolithic diet consisted of about 80% mammoth meat and woolly rhinoceros. During the Pleistocene, these animals inhabited mainly the cold steppes that covered much of Eurasia, from central Spain and southern England to Mongolia and southern Siberia.

In addition, about 20% of the Neanderthal diet consisted of plants. These conclusions are little different from those of studies of the diet of modern men. Since Neanderthal ate the same thing, it seems that his disappearance 30,000 years ago is not attributable to his diet.