In a cave just south of Lisbon, archeological deposits conceal a Paleolithic dinner menu. As well as stone tools and charcoal, the site of Gruta de Figueira Brava contains rich deposits of shells and bones with much to tell us about the Neanderthals that lived there – especially about their meals. A study published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology shows that 90,000 years ago, these Neanderthals were cooking and eating crabs.
[...] The evidence indicated to Nabais and her colleagues that Neanderthals weren't just harvesting the crabs, they were roasting them. The black burns on the shells, compared to studies of other mollusks heated at specific temperatures, showed that the crabs were heated at about 300-500 degrees Celsius, typical for cooking.
"Our results add an extra nail to the coffin of the obsolete notion that Neanderthals were primitive cave dwellers who could barely scrape a living off scavenged big-game carcasses," said Nabais. "Together with the associated evidence for the large-scale consumption of limpets, mussels, clams, and a range of fish, our data falsify the notion that marine foods played a major role in the emergence of putatively superior cognitive abilities among early modern human populations of sub-Saharan Africa."
[...] "The notion of the Neanderthals as top-level carnivores living off large herbivores of the steppe-tundra is extremely biased," said Nabais. "Such views may well apply to some extent to the Neanderthal populations of Ice Age Europe's periglacial belt, but not to those living in the southern peninsulas — and these southern peninsulas are where most of the continent's humans lived all through the Paleolithic, before, during and after the Neanderthals."
Journal Reference:
Mariana Nabais, Catherine Dupont, and João Zilhão, The exploitation of crabs by Last Interglacial Iberian Neanderthals: The evidence from Gruta da Figueira Brava (Portugal) [open], Front. Environ. Archaeol., 07 February 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fearc.2023.1097815
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, @09:42PM (2 children)
Not my area but if I had to wager on why Neanderthal died out, it would be their body shapes. I'm given to understand they were short, stocky and "sturdy" people. Perhaps equal in intelligence to modern man, but just built differently. They were built for the Ice Age. The heavy body would be a handicap in a warmer climate. Modern man could stalk prey for hours. Neanderthal would tire out more easily in the heat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, @10:37PM
Maybe they tasted good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05, @04:40AM
Just look at how humans have wiped out other humans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, @10:19PM
definitely not kosher...
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 03, @10:20PM (2 children)
Nor would I be surprised if we learned that crabs ate Neanderthals, when and if the occasion arose.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday March 04, @02:09AM (1 child)
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 3, Funny) by turgid on Saturday March 04, @12:14PM
They're scavengers. They eat scraps. If you clean fish on the quay side and throw the scraps in the water, the crabs all scuttle out to eat them.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday March 04, @12:12PM (1 child)
Everything eats them.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pTamok on Saturday March 04, @12:22PM
Crabs are extraordinarily successful in evolutionary terms. Their body shape and mode of locomotion have evolved independently multiple times [sciencealert.com].
And I'm an exception. I don't like crab meat, so I don't eat them. Lobsters, crayfish, prawns and shrimp: yes. Crabs: no.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Saturday March 04, @09:21PM (2 children)
That's scorching hot. Cooking is done at 100 degrees Celsius (boiling water). Baking is between 150 and 200 Celsius.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday March 05, @12:26AM (1 child)
"Cooking" probably consisted of chucking them in the fire until the shell went black then dragging them out with a stick and breaking them open. I doubt the interior got to 300 degrees or it would be inedible.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday March 20, @02:28AM
Neanderthals made glue distilled from birch pitch, and their artifacts have been found where the only access was by boat. One suspects cooking crabs to taste was within their grasp.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.