Neanderthals had a ‘fat factory’ where they processed bones for grease
Neanderthal culinary skills were more sophisticated than we thought
Gregoire Cirade / Science Photo Library
Neanderthals treated animal bones to extract fats 125,000 years ago, almost 100,000 years before modern humans were known to do something similar.
The evidence comes from an extraordinary site on the edge of Lake Neumark-Nord in eastern Germany, where more than 100,000 bone fragments of at least 172 individual animals have been found. The remains include horses, bovids, deer, foxes, large cats and a rhino with two horns off.
The bones had clear signs of being broken into small pieces and heated to release the fat from spongy fabrics inside. This fat would have provided a less perishable, easily transportable high-level food, which would have been very appreciated by the hunter-gatherer groups.
Wil Roebroeks at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and his colleagues, who carried out the study, describe the location as a “big factory” which seems to have been used intensively for a short period. “The fragmentation of the bones is clearly anthropic, not the result of carnivores or geological processes,” he says.
Although there is no direct proof that the Neanderthals were responsible for the butcher’s shop, they were the only known humans in Europe at the time, explains Roebroeks.
Previously, the oldest site where the fat rendering had been confirmed was in Portugal 28,000 years ago.
The breaking of the bones of large mammals into such a large quantity of small fragments is at high intensity of labor and takes time. “It only makes sense if the fragmentation served one objective,” explains Roebroeks.
Although the team has no direct boiling evidence, it is clear that the bones have been heated. “Judging by the presence of clearly heated bone, heated flint artefacts and stones, burned fires on the site,” he said.
The first known pottery dates from around 20,000 years ago, Neanderthals must therefore have used other types of ships to boil the bones. Recent experiences have shown that containers made from perishable materials such as deer skin or birch bark, placed directly on a fire, are able to heat water enough to treat food, explains Roebroeks.
“This is another addition to the cultural repertoire of these distant cousins and underlines the possibility that these hunter-gatherers have engaged in a form of food storage,” he said.
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