We’re living through a golden age of archaeological discovery about our distant cousins, the Neanderthals. We’ve recently learned they were much more intelligent than we used to give them credit for, and culinarily, they were much more into insects than we’ve ever been. Though it probably wasn’t on purpose.
According to a new study published in Science Advances, researchers analyzed ancient DNA trapped in dental plaque from 18 Neanderthals, 745 early modern humans, and 96 great apes, an idea that pairs well with another recent discovery: that Neanderthal dental practices were not only a thing but were also absolutely brutal. The findings suggest that while prehistoric humans in Europe and Central Asia mostly avoided insects, Neanderthals were all about them. Though it might have been unwilling, or at the very least, they didn’t mind some food with a few bugs in it.
The researchers detected significant amounts of insect DNA, especially flies and mosquitoes, in Neanderthal dental remains. Now, they weren’t out hunting specifically for maggots and mosquitoes. These insects mostly entered their systems because they ate rotting meat that was filled with maggots or insect eggs.
Mmm…. Maggots
Study author Manuel Piñero noted that the results support earlier theories about Neanderthals’ weirdly high nitrogen isotope levels, which suggests that they regularly ate a lot of insect larvae that were tucked away inside animal carcasses.
Comparatively, the closest relative to modern humans that existed around the time of the Neanderthals, who broadly lived in the same regions, showed only trace amounts of insect DNA in their teeth, meaning that bug-eating was rare and also probably accidental.
The research team examined 1,663 ancient human genomes, on the hunt for variants of genes that produced the kinds of enzymes capable of taking down Titan, the tough stuff that makes up insect exoskeletons. They found that early humans who lived closer to the equator retained a lot of the toolset needed to digest insects. But as populations traveled north into colder climates, where there were fewer insects, they didn’t need all these tools as much. By the pre-Neolithic period, all Europeans could not properly digest insects, which persists among Eurasian populations living in temperate areas to this day.
Neanderthals though? They held onto those chitin-digesting genes, even if they lived in cold regions. Protein is protein. It’s hard to come by, so take it where you can get it.
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