The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
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Milk. It does a body good.Archaeologist Noreen Tuross has reached some surprising conclusions based on her study of the Neanderthal diet.To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
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· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
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Ah. Proof that the french are Neanderthals...
I don’t get her conclusion. Snails are animals therefore escargot is meat.
I’d eat a crow before I’d eat a snail.
I’d be more surprised if their diet didn’t include snails. They’re abundant, nourishing and (above all) easy to catch - no chance of being injured by a wounded, rampaging escargot.
I wonder if the fact that snails still form a significant part of the diet of the French and Spanish (I saw large bags of snails at a market in Valencia only a few weeks back) is linked at all to those places being the last refuge of the Neanderthal?
Neanderthal diets also consisted of other foods -- like escargot.
I could live on Escargot w/garlic butter sauce and Moët Brut Champagne.
(That's the only things the Frogs are good for.)
Neanderthal diets also consisted of other foods — like escargot.
escargot without garlic, drawn butter and a chilled white wine is just...
snail.
Taste for flesh troubled NeanderthalsThe extinction of the Neanderthals could have been caused by their choosy appetites - they ate virtually nothing but meat... "They were picky eaters," says Dr Paul Pettitt, at the University of Oxford, UK. "And this tells me that they are really unchanging - doing the same old thing year after year... Neanderthals were excellent hunters," Dr Petitt told BBC News Online. "But the issue that was at stake was whether they hunted every day of their lives or whether it was just a summer outing." ...The early humans themselves may have been better hunters than the Neanderthals, depriving them of their kills. Or the hunted animals may have been struck by disease or migrated away.
by Dr Damian Carrington
BBC News Online
Monday, 12 June, 2000What the Hominid AteAnalyzing carbon atoms locked up in tooth enamel, two researchers challenge the widely held belief that Australopithecus africanus -- an upright, walking pre-human hominid that lived in southern Africa -- ate little more than fruits and leaves. Matt Sponheimer, an anthropology graduate student at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and Julia Lee-Thorp of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, looked at four A. africanus fossil skeletons unearthed from South Africa. Living about 3 million years ago, A. africanus may be a direct ancestor of modern humans. A. africanus teeth were large and blunt with thick enamel, ideal for crushing nuts and chewing fruit as opposed to the sharp incisors one would want to rip into meat. The first stone tools, which would help in eating meat, didn't appear until about half a million years later. Sponheimer and Lee-Thorp took a new approach, looking at the chemical composition of the tooth enamel. After chipping about two milligrams of enamel with a diamond-tipped dental drill, the researchers analyzed the samples for the isotope carbon-13, which contains one extra neutron in the nucleus compared to the usual form of carbon. What Sponheimer and Lee-Thorp found was that the teeth of A. africanus had an in-between amount carbon-13 -- more than the fruit eaters, less than the grass eaters.
by Kenneth Chang
A remarkably stupid article. Primitive peoples everywhere eat anything they can get ahold of.
Picky eaters are found only in wealthy societies.
It was a brave neanderthal who ate the first raw oyster.
Probably didn’t have any red sauce with horseradish.
