Stone era people living on a lake in the current processing of Germany, processed animal carcasses for fatty nutrients – essentially governing what scientists describe as a “fat factory” to cook bones on a huge scale, according to New Research.
Archaeologists discovered the factory by analyzing about 120,000 bone fragments and 16,000 flint instruments found for several years on a spot known as Neumark-Nord, south of Halle, they reported in a study published Wednesday at Science Advance. The excavators found the artifacts along with evidence of fire use.
Researchers believe that the Neanderthals, a disappeared species of a person who are known to have lived in the area 125,000 years ago, break the brain -rich bones in fragments with stone hammers, and then remove them for several hours to extract the fats that sail on the surface and can be jumping.
As this feat would involve hunting, transporting and storing corpses beyond the immediate needs of food and converting fat into an area specifically indicated for the task, the finding helps to draw a picture of the organization of the group, the strategy and the deeply advanced survival skills.
“This attitude that the Neanderthals were stupid – this is another data point that proves otherwise,” says Will Roybrows, co -author of a study and professor of paleolithic archeology at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.
A series of archaeological discoveries in recent decades have shown that the Neanderthals have been smartest than their initial rough stereotype can suggest. Ancient people lived in Eurasia and disappeared 40,000 years ago, and previous studies found that they had made yarn and glue, engraved bones and cave walls and assembled jewelry from the eagle coupons.
Details of new research suggest that Neanderthals may have been unexpectedly refined in their approach to nutrition.
Researchers believe the Neanderthals break the animal bones into fragments before boiling them to extract nutrients. – Kindler/Leiza-Monrepos
Threat of protein poisoning
The Neanderthals living on the German site for a period of 300 years also clearly understood the nutritional value of the bone fat they produced, according to the study.
A small amount of fat is an essential part of a healthy, balanced diet. The substance was even more important for the gatherer hunters, such as Neanderthals, who probably depend on animal foods.
A diet dominated by lean meat and fatty acid deficiency can lead to a disabling and sometimes lethal form of malnutrition, in which the capacity of liver enzymes to break down the protein and get rid of excess nitrogen is disturbed by the researchers in their paper. Known today as protein poisoning, the condition has won a reputation among the early European researchers of North America as a “rabbit poisoning” or “Mal de Caribu”.
Hunters-gathers like Neanderthals, with medium body weights between 50 pounds and 80 pounds (110 pounds and 175 pounds), would have to maintain their diet protein consumption under 300 grams (about 10 ounces) a day to avoid the condition. This is about 1200 calories – a level of intake away from the daily energy needs, according to the study. As a result, the Neanderthals are probably necessary for the source of other calories from the non -protein source, fat or carbohydrates.
Cutting animal muscles contains very little fat, making bones – which contain brain and other fat, even when the animal is malnourished – a more important resource.
Researchers have found that most of the remains of the place come from 172 separate large animals, including horses, deer and aurochi, large cow-like beings that have already disappeared. The Neanderthals had chosen the longest bones that would contain the most brains, the study found.
AI generates the impression of what the fat factory may look like 125,000 years ago. – Sherjon/Leiza-Monrepos
Dash of acorns, a pinch of plum plum
Exactly how the Neanderthals process the bones is not clear, according to the authors of the study. Ancient people probably create containers or pots of birch bark, animal skins or other parts of the body, such as stomach cladding, filling them with water and hanging them over a fire, Roeboeks said.
Neanderthals could consume the fats they produced as a “oily broth”, to which plants could be added, as well as nutritional value, suggested that co -author Jeff Smith, a senior zooarheology researcher at the University of Reading. The charred remains of hazelnuts, acorns and plum of Sloe were also discovered during the excavations, he noted.
“These were not a simple hunters of the hunter who were just working from the day, they were the main planning ones who could look forward, organize complex tasks, and pull out every last calorie out of their middle,” Smith said.
The findings are “exciting”, according to Ludovich Slimak, an archaeologist at the French National Center for Research (CNRS) and the University of Paul Sabatie in Toulouse, France. Slimak did not participate in the study.
“They finally offer a clear archaeological confirmation of what many of us have long suspected: that the Neanderthals not only appreciate the lipids in the bones, but have developed specific strategies for their extraction and processing,” says Slimak, who is the author of the Last Neandertal, which will be published in English later this year.
“This is narrowly equated with the wider archeological record that shows the Neanderthals as highly qualified hunters of large games with a sophisticated sense of ecological adaptation,” he added.
The Neumark-Nord site is “the best example so far for bone-fat depicting” from this period of the Stone Age, said Bruce Hardy, professor of anthropology of J. Kenneth Smoke at Kenion College in Gambier, Ohio. Hardy also did not participate in the study.
“The combination of evidence presented here in Neumark-Nord is impressive,” Hardy said. “This may be the smoldering gun or simmer the bone broth of the Neanderthal bone imaging.”
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