Mousterian vegetal food in Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel

Lev, Efraim; Kislev, Mordechai E.; Bar‐Yosef, Ofer

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2004.11.006

Cited by 173 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Dental microwear studies suggest that Neanderthals from lower latitudes consumed a mixed diet including plants (El Zaatari et al, 2011). Macrobotanical analysis at the Middle Palaeolithic site of Kebara (Israel) identified the charred remains of seeds preserved in hearths and found evidence for use of legumes, acorns and pistachio nuts (Lev et al, 2005). Studies of plant microremains preserved in soils (Henry et al, 1996(Henry et al, , 2004Albert et al, 1999Albert et al, , 2000Rosen, 2003) and dental calculus (Henry et al, 2011) from Near Eastern sites suggest that Neanderthals may have consumed a variety of plant foods such as date palms and grains.…”

Section: Evidence Of Neanderthal Plant Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neanderthal diets in central and southeastern Mediterranean Iberia

Salazar‐García

Power

Serra³

et al. 2013

Quaternary International

116

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a b s t r a c tDuring recent decades, Neanderthal diet has been a major research topic in palaeoanthropology. This has been accelerated by the maturation of different techniques, which have produced a plethora of new information. However, this proliferation of data has led to confusing and contradictory results. Furthermore, most of the ecological dietary studies have been carried out on specimens drawn from different time periods and regions, almost exclusively those characterized by cold, open environmental conditions. Subsistence models based on these fragmentary data have been applied to Neanderthals living in a variety of different regions and environments, even though their dietary strategies may have been as variable as regions they inhabited. In this paper we integrate different dietary approaches (studies of the zooarchaeology, stable isotopes and plant remains) from the central and southeastern Mediterranean coast of Iberia in order to develop a broader and more complex picture of Neanderthal diet in different Mediterranean environmental conditions. Our results suggest that there may have been some minor dietary variation due to climatic or environmental differences, but that Neanderthal diet focussed on large terrestrial game, supplemented by plant foods when these were available.Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. Neanderthal dietary ecologyThe dietary behaviours of Neanderthals and the relationship between their diet and their social organization, technological abilities, and even their eventual disappearance, have been hotly debated in the anthropological literature. Examining the diets of Neanderthals requires the synthesis of data that have been collected by numerous researchers over the last 150 years. In many cases, the differences between Neanderthal and early modern human diets have been emphasized, at the expense of cogent discussion of the variation within each group. Early modern humans lived in a wide variety of environmental contexts and likely pursued a variety of behaviours throughout this range of environments. The exclusively Eurasian distribution of Neanderthals did not include as many environments, but neither was it the exclusively cold Arctic climate that many have supposed it to be. A more detailed examination of the Neanderthal range and the effects of shifting global climates reveals that this group would have been exposed to a diverse range of environments (Hoffecker, 2009;MacDonald et al., 2009). Just as modern human dietary behaviour likely varied with environments, so, too, can we predict that Neanderthals had different diets in different environments.Our understanding of the diets of Neanderthals comes from three main lines of evidence. The first is the study of the human remains themselves, including the isotope signal recorded in their bones, the microwear on their teeth, and how factors of their lifehistory are related to diet. The second line of evidence includes the study of the remains of their food, in the form of animal and plant remains preserved ...

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Section: Evidence Of Neanderthal Plant Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neanderthal diets in central and southeastern Mediterranean Iberia

Salazar‐García

Power

Serra³

et al. 2013

Quaternary International

116

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Though plants would likely have been available in Neanderthal environments (Hardy, 2010), there are few records of their use of plants. Charred seeds have been found in the Mousterian levels of Kebara (Lev et al, 2005) and Gorham's Cave (Barton et al, 1999). Phytoliths from edible plants have been recovered from sediments in several Near Eastern Neanderthal sites (Henry et al, 1996(Henry et al, , 2004Albert et al, 1999Albert et al, , 2000Rosen, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant foods and the dietary ecology of Neanderthals and early modern humans

Henry

Brooks

Piperno

2014

Journal of Human Evolution

201

135

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“…Other evidence suggests that Neanderthal foraging patterns were much like those of modern humans (8,9), including small game (10), marine resources (11), plant foods (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17), similar use of fire (18), some cooking, and other food processing (10,13), and that these behaviors may have extended back in time to the Middle Pleistocene (19). These dietary behaviors are not only important in terms of energy they provide, but also can suggest sophistication in other areas of Neanderthal behavior.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Microfossils in calculus demonstrate consumption of plants and cooked foods in Neanderthal diets (Shanidar III, Iraq; Spy I and II, Belgium)

Henry

Brooks

Piperno

2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

444

263

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The nature and causes of the disappearance of Neanderthals and their apparent replacement by modern humans are subjects of considerable debate. Many researchers have proposed biologically or technologically mediated dietary differences between the two groups as one of the fundamental causes of Neanderthal disappearance. Some scenarios have focused on the apparent lack of plant foods in Neanderthal diets. Here we report direct evidence for Neanderthal consumption of a variety of plant foods, in the form of phytoliths and starch grains recovered from dental calculus of Neanderthal skeletons from Shanidar Cave, Iraq, and Spy Cave, Belgium. Some of the plants are typical of recent modern human diets, including date palms ( Phoenix spp.), legumes, and grass seeds (Triticeae), whereas others are known to be edible but are not heavily used today. Many of the grass seed starches showed damage that is a distinctive marker of cooking. Our results indicate that in both warm eastern Mediterranean and cold northwestern European climates, and across their latitudinal range, Neanderthals made use of the diverse plant foods available in their local environment and transformed them into more easily digestible foodstuffs in part through cooking them, suggesting an overall sophistication in Neanderthal dietary regimes.

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Mousterian vegetal food in Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel

Cited by 173 publications

References 20 publications

Neanderthal diets in central and southeastern Mediterranean Iberia

Neanderthal diets in central and southeastern Mediterranean Iberia

Plant foods and the dietary ecology of Neanderthals and early modern humans

Microfossils in calculus demonstrate consumption of plants and cooked foods in Neanderthal diets (Shanidar III, Iraq; Spy I and II, Belgium)

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