(CNN) According to new research, Stone Age individuals who lived near a lake in what is now Germany routinely processed animal corpses for fatty nutrients, effectively operating what scientists refer to as a fat factory to boil bones on a large scale.
According to a study released Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, archaeologists discovered the factory by examining some 120,000 bone fragments and 16,000 flint tools that were discovered over a number of years in a location known as Neumark-Nord, south of the city of Halle. The artifacts were discovered by excavators along with signs of fire use.
The researchers think that Neanderthals, an extinct human species that lived in the region up to 125,000 years ago, used stone hammers to break up the marrow-rich bones into pieces. They then boiled them for a few hours to remove the fat, which floats to the top and can be skimmed off when it cools.
The discovery contributes to a picture of the group’s organization, strategy, and highly developed survival abilities because this accomplishment would have required organizing hunts, transporting and storing carcasses beyond immediate food demands, and rendering the fat at a location specifically designated for the task.
Wil Roebroeks, a study coauthor and professor of Paleolithic archaeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands, stated that this belief that Neanderthals were stupid is just one more piece of evidence to the contrary.
Recent decades have seen a number of archeological finds that demonstrate Neanderthals were more intelligent than their initial brutish caricature would have implied. According to earlier research, the ancient people, who inhabited Eurasia before going extinct 40,000 years ago, created glue and yarn, carved bones and cave walls, and put together jewelry out of eagle claws.
The new study’s details imply that Neanderthals might have also had a very advanced nutritional strategy.
Threat of protein poisoning
According to the study, the Neanderthals who lived in the German location for three hundred years also had a comprehensive understanding of the nutritional worth of the bone grease they created.
A healthy, balanced diet must include a small quantity of fat. For hunter-gatherers like Neanderthals, who probably relied mostly on animal products, the chemical was even more necessary.
According to the researchers’ article, a diet high in lean meat and low in fatty acids can cause a crippling and occasionally fatal type of malnutrition where the liver’s enzymes’ ability to break down protein and eliminate excess nitrogen is compromised. The illness, which is now known as protein poisoning, was known as rabbit poisoning or mal de caribou to early European explorers of North America.
In order to prevent the illness, hunter-gatherers like Neanderthals, who typically weighed between 50 and 80 kilograms (110 and 175 pounds), would have needed to limit their daily intake of dietary protein to less than 300 grams, or roughly 10 ounces. According to the research, that equates to about 1,200 calories, which is a level of intake that is well below daily energy needs. Because of this, the Neanderthals probably had to get the rest of their calories from nonprotein sources like fat or carbohydrates.
Because animal muscle cuts have relatively little fat, bones—which even in emaciated animals retain marrow and other fatty tissue—are a more valuable resource.
Researchers found that 172 unique large species, including horses, deer, and aurochs—huge, cow-like animals that are now extinct—accounted for the vast majority of the remains found at the site. According to the study, Neanderthals had chosen the longest bones because they would have had the most marrow.
A dash of acorn, a pinch of sloe plum
The authors of the study say it’s unclear exactly how the Neanderthals processed the bones. According to Roebroeks, prehistoric people probably made pots or containers out of birch bark, animal hides, or other bodily parts like stomach linings, filled them with water, and hung them over a fire.
Geoff Smith, a senior researcher in zooarchaeology at the University of Reading, speculated that Neanderthals might have eaten the fat they created as a greasy stew to which vegetables might have been added for taste and nutritional value. He added that during the digs, the burned remains of sloe plum, oak, and hazelnut were also discovered.
According to Smith, these were not merely hunter-gatherers surviving day to day; rather, they were expert planners who were able to plan ahead, organize difficult tasks, and extract every last calorie from their surroundings.
Ludovic Slimak, an archaeologist at Paul Sabatier University and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Toulouse, France, said the results are fascinating. Slimak did not participate in the research.
According to Slimak, author of The Last Neanderthal, which will be released in English later this year, they finally provide unambiguous archaeological evidence of what many of us had long suspected: that Neanderthals not only valued within-bone lipids but also devised specialized methods for extracting and processing them.
He said that this is in line with the larger body of archaeological evidence that demonstrates Neanderthals were expert big game hunters with a sophisticated understanding of ecological adaptability.
Bruce Hardy, the J. Kenneth Smail Professor of Anthropology at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, stated that the Neumark-Nord site is the best example of bone-grease rendering from this Stone Age period to date. Hardy did not participate in the study either.
“It’s an impressive combination of evidence presented here at Neumark-Nord,” Hardy added. It might very well be the simmering bone broth, or burning gun, of Neanderthal bone-grease rendering.
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