Neanderthals are generally portrayed as simpleminded carnivores. But a groundbreaking new study of hominid teeth has found that some of them were dedicated vegetarians and may even have used certain plants as painkillers. Researchers analyzed DNA that had been preserved in dental plaque from three Neanderthals that lived between 42,000 and 50,000 years ago—two from El Sidrón Cave in Spain and one from Spy Cave in Belgium. They found that while the hominid from the grasslands of Spy ate mostly meat, including woolly rhino and wild sheep, some of the inhabitants of the dense forests of El Sidrón probably ate no meat at all, subsisting instead on moss, pine nuts, and fungi. “It is very indicative of a vegetarian diet,” study co-author Laura Weyrich, from the University of Adelaide, tells NPR.org. “Probably the true paleo diet.” The DNA analysis also suggested that one of the El Sidrón Neanderthals may have consumed poplar tree bark—which contains salicylic acid, one of the ingredients in aspirin—to treat pain from a diarrhea-inducing gut parasite and a tooth abscess. The same hominid’s dental plaque also contained traces of the mold used to make penicillin. Another surprising finding was that Neanderthals had mouth bacteria that was acquired from Homo sapiens, which suggests the species were either kissing or sharing food. The discovery, Weyrich says, indicates that relations between modern humans and Neanderthals were probably “much more friendly than anyone imagined.”
Taken from the March 31, 2017 edition of The Week Magazine.
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