Amazing stuff! Perhaps, the Neanderthals were not so dumb after all!
Notice our far distant ancestors knew already that lean (low fat) or protein rich diets are unhealthy! 😊
"Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that Neanderthals rendered fat from bones 125,000 years ago. Modern humans have been using the process for at least 28,000 years, but the latest finding of “fat factories” reveals that Neanderthals were doing it much earlier. ...
Fat is a vital component of the hunter-gatherer diet, especially during the winter months, when animals are lean and hunted meat alone is not sufficient for sustenance. Eating lean protein without other nutrients can lead to protein poisoning, also known as ‘rabbit starvation’. Fat from bone marrow is a high-calorie source of nutrition, and is an important addition to a protein-heavy diet. ...
During the process of rendering fat, bones were broken down into small segments using stone hammers and were boiled to draw out the fat, which rose to the top and could be extracted after cooling. Containers made from bark and animal tissue have been suggested for this process, although such artefacts would be unlikely to be found in the archaeological record owing to the perishable nature of these materials.
The team analysed material from Neumark-Nord near Leipzig, Germany: a former lake landscape that has yielded artefacts left by humans and their ancient relatives dating back 400,000 years. The researchers excavated thousands of bone fragments and other remains and artefacts from a layer of the site that has been dated to about 125,000 years ago — long before modern humans arrived in Europe.
Butchered and broken
The bones were heavily fragmented and marked with cuts, and had been harvested from at least 172 large animals, suggesting a large-scale operation in which animals were purposely transported to the area. Many of the bones were scattered around the site, but the researchers found a dense cluster of marrow-rich bones that they describe as a “fat factory”.
No direct evidence of boiling was found, but there were signs of the use of fire near the bone cluster, including charcoal and bones, flint and other rocks that had been exposed to heat. ..."
From the abstract:
"Diet played a key role in human evolution, making the study of past diet and subsistence strategies a crucial research topic within paleoanthropology.
Lipids are a crucial resource for hunter-gatherers, especially for foragers whose diet is based heavily on animal foods. Recent foragers have expended substantial amounts of energy to obtain this resource, including time-consuming production of bone grease, a resource intensification practice thus far only documented for Upper Paleolithic populations.
We present archaeological data from the lake landscape of Neumark-Nord (Germany), where Last Interglacial Neanderthals processed at least 172 large mammals at a water’s edge site.
Their (partial) carcasses were transported to this location for the extraction of within-bone nutrients, particularly bone grease.
This “fat factory” constitutes a well-documented case of grease rendering predating the Upper Paleolithic, with the special task location devoted to extraction of nutritionally important lipids forming an important addition to our knowledge of Neanderthal adaptations."
Neandertaler betrieben bereits vor 125.000 Jahren „Fettfabriken“ (original news release) "Bahnbrechender Fund in Deutschland zeigt groß angelegte Fettverarbeitung durch Neandertaler"
Neanderthals boiled bones in ‘fat factories’ to enrich their lean diet "Germany digs reveal a large-scale operation 100,000 years earlier than oldest known fat rendering by modern humans."
Fig. 1. Location of Neumark-Nord (Germany).
Fig. 7. Examples of cut marks in the NN2/2B faunal assemblage.
Fig. 8. Examples of hammerstone-induced impact damage on long bones from NN2/2B.
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