Neandethals were rendering fat

(Bob M) #1

Interesting article about Neanderthals rendering fat and preparing meat from animals:

Fits with my bias that we as a species preferred animals over vegetables or fruits.

(Joey) #2

This goes way back. Even (as late as) in biblical times, Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd. The vegetarian offerings were considered unimpressive compared to the choice meats - at least according to the ultimate food critic Himself.

And thus, brutal animosity between vegans and carnivores began.

(Bob M) #3

Also, I remember reading The Three Musketeers, and one of them goes off to become a priest of some sort. He is so happy when the other two come to get him, because he was eating vegetarian fare, and he could go back to eating meat. When I was younger, that went right past me. But being older and hearing what they ate, they ate a lot of meat according to the story.

I think it was also a book about the Plantagenets, the “first” real kings and queens of England, where the author detailed what they were eating. A lot of meat, and they used the entire animal.

(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat ) #4

Love stuff like this. Thanks for posting it up :smiley:

(Edith) #5

There was a recent article in BBC Science that said that humans did consume plant matter as determined by isotope analysis in bones and tartar build up in teeth. I can’t find the article at the moment to link it. They seemed to imply that a large portion of their diet was from plants. I think the article mentioned testing bones and teeth from people in Morocco from about 15000 years ago.

I would not dispute the fact that humans ate plants, but I truly can’t believe they were a large part of the diet for any peoples at latitudes beyond the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer, especially in pre-agricultural societies.

Take berries for example. They are ripe for a very small portion of the growing season and humans are competing with other animals, especially birds. We have a blueberry bush in our yard, the birds usually eat the berries before they are even ripe. Say a small tribe prehistoric tribe consists of 15 people. How much energy are those 15 people really going to get from the berries that could be harvested before the growing season is over? How about wild grains? Could they really gather enough to feed multiple people a significant amount of calories for an extended period of time? Now nuts, I think, is an entirely different matter. Trees drop a lot of nuts, they are easy to store, and fairly non-perishable.

Experimental archaeologist Bill Schindler did a National Geographic Special called “The Great Human Race” back in 2016 where he and a survival expert “survived” in the wild using the tools available during different chapters in human history. They spent most of their time trying to get meat. They did some foraging, but it was time consuming and used a lot of energy for not much nutritional gain.

I understand that prehistoric humans really knew their environments and what plants and roots they could and couldn’t eat, but I just can’t believe the plants were anything but a supplement to meat or a stop gap when meat wasn’t available.

Bringing me back to Neandertals rendering fat. They were certainly enough like us that home sapiens interbred with them. Their species was around for a long time, surviving in very hostile conditions. It made sense they had the wherewithal to processes and consume food to ensure their ability to survive in the climates that they did. Fruit and veggies certainly weren’t going to help survive an ice age.

Okay, found the article, but this link only works for UK, Sweden, and Germany at the moment. You may be able to find it elsewhere. I read the article in the Apple News App.

#6

I don’t have this problem. The birds totally ignore even the best, sweetest wild fruits here, apparently… I don’t understand why but okay. (And now I know birds are made to consume super acidic fruits galore so maybe they just eat such kinds and I don’t even know about them…?) They ignore lovely sweet fruit in winter. Seriously.
Wild fruit season is pretty long here but 1. there isn’t so very much fruit (for people, I mean) and most importantly, 2. it barely contains any calories from my viewpoint. Berries aren’t even sweet except rosehip! And good luck to eat much of the latter - though I guess I would find a way if I was starving… But most berries… Just tiny sour things, hardly worth it except in dire need and even then, can’t help very much with energy.

(Birds do eat my sweet, noble fruits in the garden, well some of them (only cherries and sour cherries). And big wasps eat the pears. Very, very quickly. )

And this is fruit, wild fruit still may have some calories. But I have read so very often that people use foraging to get food. I don’t know how on earth a bunch of leaves could help me out. If it’s just to spice up things or as medicine, sure! But we need so many calories… Even a big bunch of mushrooms couldn’t provide a significant help.
(Even my veggie patch is basically nothing if it comes to our energy intake…)

And I look at similarly to the early grains too but apparently they were tempting and precious enough to humans at some point. Poor souls. I imagine someone looking at those pathetic hard seeds where lots of work is needed to make something borderline edible… And thinking yes, we put huge effort into growing these. It kinda worked out for them but still, so weird. I am horribly spoiled being born at this era and not even in a 3rd world country, most probably…

I agree, nuts are another matter entirely!
And it’s obvious to me that ancient humans valued good, dense, nutritional animal (and the few plant) food most. As hunter-gatherers today do the same, no wonder. Plants were extra something or desperation food. Roots and leaves are there even when the animals run away… Poor food with low nutrient value but better than nothing. This sounds believable to me.

(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat ) #7

Just watched ‘Humans’ on BBC. Some very good new stuff there.