Study says cavemen were actually really good cooks

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

Cavemen were sophisticated cooks capable of producing a Sunday roast, suggests a new study.

Previous research has shown that Neanderthals were big game hunters - slaughtering woolly mammoths and rhinos for their meat.

But more recent archaeological studies show that man's ancestors dined on small birds too.

Spanish scientists set out to prepare food in the way Neanderthals would have done, including the replication of ancient butchering methods using similar tools, to learn how they ate birds.

They say the pilot study, published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, is key to understanding the diet of Neanderthals who thrived for thousands of years in "wildly varied" environments.

Lead author Dr. Mariana Nabais, of The Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES), said: “Using a flint flake for butchering required significant precision and effort, which we had not fully valued before this experiment.

“The flakes were sharper than we initially thought, requiring careful handling to make precise cuts without injuring our own fingers.

"These hands-on experiments emphasized the practical challenges involved in Neanderthal food processing and cooking, providing a tangible connection to their daily life and survival strategies.”

By testing food prep methods that Neanderthals may have used, to see what traces they might leave on bones and how the traces compare to damage caused by natural processes or the actions of other animals, the research team created an experimental database that can be compared to real archaeological sites.

The team collected five wild birds that had died of natural causes from the Wildlife Ecology, Rehabilitation and Surveillance Centre (CERVAS) in Gouveia, Portugal.

They chose two carrion crows, two collared doves, and a wood pigeon, which are similar to the species that Neanderthals ate and selected cooking methods using archaeological evidence and ethnographic data.

All the birds were de-feathered by hand before a carrion crow and a collared dove were butchered raw, using a flint flake.

The remaining three were roasted over hot coals until cooked, then butchered, which the scientists found much easier than butchering the raw birds.

Dr. Nabais said: “Roasting the birds over the coals required maintaining a consistent temperature and carefully monitoring the cooking duration to avoid overcooking the meat.

“Maybe because we de-feathered the birds before cooking, the roasting process was much quicker than we anticipated.

"In fact, we spent more time preparing the coals than on the actual cooking, which took less than 10 minutes.”

The scientists cleaned and dried the bones, then examined them microscopically for cut marks, breaks, and burns. They also examined the flint flake they had used for evidence of wear and tear.

Although they had used their hands for most of the butchery, the raw birds required "considerable" use of the flint flake, which was left with small half-moon scars on the edge.

Dr. Nabais explained that while the cuts used to remove meat from the raw birds did not leave traces on the bones, the cuts aimed at tendons left marks similar to those on birds found at archaeological sites.

She said: "The bones from the roasted birds were more brittle: some had shattered and couldn’t be recovered.

"Nearly all of them had brown or black burns consistent with controlled exposure to heat.

"Black stains inside some bones suggested that the contents of the inner cavity had also burned.

"This evidence sheds light not just on how Neanderthal food preparation could have worked, but also how visible that preparation might be in the archaeological record."

She says that although roasting makes it easier to access meat, the increased fragility of the bones means the leftovers might not be found by archaeologists.

The research team believes the study should be expanded to gain a fuller understanding of Neanderthal diets - including more species of small prey.

Dr. Nabais added: “The sample size is relatively small, consisting of only five bird specimens, which may not fully represent the diversity of bird species that Neanderthals might have used.

“Secondly, the experimental conditions, although carefully controlled, cannot completely replicate the exact environmental and cultural contexts of Neanderthal life.

"Further research with larger samples, varied species, and more diverse experimental conditions is necessary to expand upon these results.”