Researchers believe humans’ closest relatives may have stored meat from their kills for months before eating it
For hungry Neanderthals, there was more on the menu than wild mammals, roasted pigeon, seafood and plants. Chemical signatures in the ancient bones point to a nutritious and somewhat inevitable side dish: handfuls of fresh maggots.
The theory from US researchers undermines previous thinking that Neanderthals were “hypercarnivores” who stood at the top of the food chain with cave lions, sabre-toothed tigers and other beasts that consumed impressive quantities of meat.
Rather than feasting on endless mammoth steaks, they stored their kills for months, the scientists believe, favouring the fatty parts over lean meat, and the maggots that riddled the putrefying carcasses.
Are maggots not meat?
favouring the fatty parts over lean meat, and the maggots that riddled the putrefying carcasses.
The next new diet fads are going to be really interesting:
“Bruh! You gotta try the latest True Paleo™ diet…”
Want there already some health couple eating raw, purified meat. They had a jar they just left out.
I’m going to try and find a link.
“The only reason this is surprising is that it contradicts what we westerners think of as food,”
Buried fermented shark, fermented herring, Italian maggot cheese etc etc.
“We westerners” amounts to Kraft eating Americans in this article
“We westerners” amounts to Kraft eating Americans in this article. True. American corporations are taking over America.
“We westerners” amounts to Kraft-eating Americans in this article.
True. Americans tend to have very bland palettes.I had to re-read that sentence.
But at least they ferment the milk (aka use old, spoiled milk) for the chocolate to give it the distinctive taste of vomit.
That’s cut down with the wax and vegetable oil.
Apparently maggots are plants now.
So they were farming maggots?
We could have a bit of yummy meat today and then its gone, or we could leave it and have maggots for months.
Pretty smart, if gross.
Actually, maggots are super nutritious - they’re like 50% protein and have tons of essential fats that would’ve been crucial for brain development, so it was probably more of a win-win than just a storage solution!
The trick must surely lie in the preparation. We aren’t Neanderthals and cook our food, and I’m sure we can find a way to make maggots or other insect larvae appetizing. As you mentioned, they are highly nutritious.
Or they could have frozen it and thawed it by the fire, because winter, but hey wtf do I know.
We have the advantage of technological improvements though. They crawled so we could walk
4g per kg of body weight is still a tremendous amount of meat.
Not especially. That’s 300g or 10.5 oz of meat for a 75kg person.
Assuming 7 grams of protein per ounce of beef, you’d need roughly 1.21 kgs of beef for a 75kg Neanderthal.
Ah, i misread your comment as saying 4g of meat/kg and not 4g of protein/kg. Thanks for the correction.
Superb article, really!
-Humans were on top of the food chain, even if they didn’t consume proportionally as much meat as carnivores, as they are fucking carnivores… -Maggots are meat…
Wonder if this relates to our love for aged meat.
Fermenting and aging in general is beautiful. Such unique and delicate flavors.
