Neanderthals were not only meat eaters as was always thought, they also took their food from the sea, according to a study published Friday in the scientific journal Science.
Until now, it was thought that fishing for food was only done by modern humans, but the scientists found that a group of Neanderthals on the coast of southern Portugal today also feasted on sharks, dolphins, seals, mussels, among others. and spare ribs.
The group of international scientists, in collaboration with the University of Göttingen, Germany, investigated ancient waste mountains in the south of Portugal, which mainly consist of shells. The Neanderthals in question took half of their food from the sea, the researchers said, the other half consisted of land animals such as deer, goats, horses, turtles, and cow predecessors.
When the Neanderthals were in later Europe, the homo sapiens, the predecessor of modern man, lived in Africa. Until now, the theory has been that only the homo sapiens ate fish and that the fish fats developed the brain, which made ‘we’ more inventive and creative. It was always the idea that this development would eventually have driven the homo sapiens out of the Neanderthals.
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