Fermented meat with a side of maggots: A new look at the Neanderthal diet
Traditionally, the indigenous peoples almost universally considered animal foods and infested with flies as highly desirable dishes, not famine rations. In fact, many peoples of these peoples have regularly and often intentionally allowed animal food to decompose to the point where they crawl with maggots, in some cases, even starting to liquefy.
This rotten food inevitably issued a stench so overwhelming that the first European explorers, fur trappers and missionaries were sick. However, indigenous peoples considered these foods to eat, even delicacy. When they were asked how they could tolerate foul sister, they simply replied: “We don’t eat the smell.”
The cultural practices of Neanderthals, similar to those of indigenous peoples, could be the response to the mystery of their high values of Δ¹⁵n. Ancient hominines massacred, stored, preserved, cooked and cultivated a variety of items. All these practices have enriched their paleo menu with foods in forms that non -hominine carnivores do not consume. Research shows that Δ¹⁵n values are higher for cooked foods, putrid muscle tissue of earthly and aquatic species and, with our study, for flies feeding on decaying tissues.
The high values of δ¹⁵n of the asticots associated with putrid animal food help to explain how the Neanderthals could have included many other nutritious foods beyond meat only while recording the values Δ¹⁵n that we are used to seeing in hypercarnivores.
We suspect that the high values of δ¹⁵n observed in Neanderthals reflect routine consumption of fatty animal tissues and the content of the fermented stomach, largely in a semi-Putrid or putrid state, as well as the inevitable bonus of living and dead asticots.
Which is still not known
The flies of flies are a resource of insects rich in fat, rich in nutrients, omnipresent and easily purchased, and the two Neanderthals and early Homo sapiensJust like the recent scorers, would have benefited from their profit fully. But we cannot say that the asticots alone explain why the Neanderthals have values Δ¹⁵n so high in their remains.
Several questions about this old diet remain unanswered. How many maggots would anyone need to consume to explain an increase in Δ¹⁵n values higher than the values expected due to meat consumption alone? How does the nutritional advantages of the consumption of maggots change more a food is stored? More experimental studies on changes in the values Δ¹⁵n of processed, stored and cooked foods according to traditional indigenous practices can help us to better understand the eating practices of our former parents.
Melanie Beasley is an assistant anthropology professor at Purdue University.
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