Fossils show ancient man ate plants as well as meat
NEW YORK — Neanderthals spent at least some time digesting plants, according to a new study that analyzed fossilized ancient feces to find the most direct evidence yet of a varied diet for man’s ancestors.
Carnivorous, or exclusively meat, diets have been the leading theory about what Neanderthals ate, with some scientists suggesting the dominance of meat contributed to their extinction. While meat was their main source of food, they also ate plants, an analysis of fossilized fecal matter showed in a study released Thursday by PLoS One, a publication of the Public Library of Science.
The study found evidence of metabolized plant products in fossilized feces from a 50,000-year-old site in El Salt, Spain. It confirmed research from 2010 that found evidence of plant matter on the teeth of the ancient species and broadens the understanding of Neanderthal behaviour and early man, said Ainara Sistiaga, the lead author.
“This is the first time that this kind of approach is used in palaeobiology research,” said Sistiaga, a graduate student at the University of La Laguna in Spain who conducted the analysis while visiting the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We are opening a new window into the organic matter in the soil.”
Neanderthals, an ancient species closely related to modern humans, lived in Europe and southwestern and Central Asia from about 200,000 to 28,000 years ago. For a time, they coexisted with Homo sapiens but eventually died out.
The new study is the first to tie plants into the Neanderthal digestive tract. The samples had high concentrations of broken-down cholesterol also found in the feces of modern humans, showing Neanderthals still ate more meat than greens.
The analysis opens a new way to study the biology of early humans, Sistiaga said. The samples at the Spanish site are the oldest fecal matter the method has been used on..