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 Neanderthalconsumption 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, Neanderthalsmade 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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Small but significant differences were found in allele frequencies among five populations (overall F ST estimate (θ)=0.004, P=0.006; overall R ST estimate (RHO)=0.019, P<0.00001) of the demersal cichlid Copadichromis sp. `virginalis kajose', collected from five locations in Lake Malawi. Pairwise F ST estimates revealed significant differences between the most southerly population (Cape Maclear), and the three most northerly populations (Mbamba Bay, Metangula and Chilola). Pairwise R ST estimates also revealed significant differences between some populations, but no geographical pattern was discernible. There was no evidence of isolation by distance using either the shortest straight-line distance between samples, or the distance around the shoreline following a 50 m depth contour. F ST, estimates were considerably lower than found in previous studies on the mbuna (rock-dwelling species), but higher than those found in a study of three pelagic cichlid species from Lake Malawi. Substructuring in C. sp. `virginalis kajose' appears to be on a similar scale to the Atlantic cod. © 2001 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles.
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