Neanderthal medics? Evidence for food, cooking, and medicinal plants entrapped in dental calculus

Hardy, Karen; Buckley, Stephen; Collins, Matthew J.; Estalrrich, Almudena; Brothwell, Don; Copeland, Les; García-Tabernero, Antonio; García-Vargas, Samuel; Vives, Marco de la Rasilla; Lalueza-Fox, Carles; Huguet, Rosa; Bastir, Markus; Santamaría, David; Madella, Marco; Wilson, Julie; Cortés, Ángel Fernández; Rosas, Antonio

doi:10.1007/s00114-012-0942-0

Cited by 336 publications

(280 citation statements)

References 59 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

263

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…), strawberry tree fruit (Arbutus unedo) and pine nuts (Pinus spp.). Furthermore, other studies have also indicated that plants were important parts of Neanderthal diets not only in southernmost parts such as at Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar (Barton et al, 1999), but even in northern parts of Spain (Hardy et al, 2012). Therefore, plant foods may have been especially important in Neanderthal diets in southeastern Iberian refugia.…”

Section: Evidence Of Neanderthal Plant Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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

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 ...

show abstract

Section: Evidence Of Neanderthal Plant Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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

show abstract

“…Table 1 shows the archaeological time periods referred to in this article. provided evidence of plant use in archaeological contexts, for example: agricultural beginnings and plant domestication [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]; hominin and pre-agricultural human diet and ancient technologies [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53]; prehistoric chimpanzee food processing and diet [54]; environmental reconstruction [55]. Table 1 shows the archaeological time periods referred to in this article.…”

Section: Starch As An Archaeological Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Starch has been found in samples of dental calculus ranging from Lower Palaeolithic hominins to Victorians [41][42][43][44][45][46][47], including from sources as diverse as Norse Shetland (Scotland), pre-Mesolithic Sudan [44], from chimpanzees [56] early Balkan agricultural populations [81] and from tropical environments [53,82]. Recovery of data on the use of plants, particularly for the early stages of the Palaeolithic, is very limited [83].…”

Section: Dental Calculusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Archaeological Starch

Copeland

Hardy

2018

Agronomy

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:This article reviews evidence of how starch granules associated with archaeological artefacts provide an insight into the use of plants by our ancestors for food, medicines and cultural activities. The properties of starch relevant to archaeological contexts, methods for examining ancient starch and the types of environmental conditions that would promote survival of starch granules over hundreds of thousands of years as part of the archaeological record, are considered. Starch granules identified in dental calculus are clear indicators of the individual having consumed starchy food as part of the diet. However, surviving starch granules may be only a tiny fraction of those consumed over a lifetime and not necessarily representative of foods that were in the diet. A hypothesis, based on a combination of archaeological, physiological and genetic evidence, that plant foods containing high quantities of digestible starch were essential for the evolution of the modern human phenotype, is discussed.

show abstract

“…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). More direct evidence for Neanderthal use of plants comes from studies of residues on stone tools from several sites in France (Hardy and Moncel, 2011;Hardy et al, 2013), and from the study of residues in dental calculus from El Sidron, Spain (Hardy et al, 2012). However, none of these studies have documented Neanderthal plant use across their range of environments and many are limited in their application, either providing only indirect evidence of plant use (plant remains in sediments) or giving limited or no information about which exact species were consumed (tool and tooth residue analysis).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%