Stone Age Sunday Roast: Neanderthal Diet Included Roasted Birds

Archaeologists and anthropologists continue to search for artifacts and skeletal remains that will reveal more details about the daily lives and lifestyles of the Neanderthals, the human species that disappeared from the face of the Earth approximately 40,000 years ago.

One area of research that has attracted a lot of attention is the Neanderthal diet, which appears to have had quite a bit of overlap with the prehistoric modern human diet. While previous research revealed that Neanderthals hunted large animals for food, just like humans, recent studies have found that they also killed and roasted various types of small birds, showing just how complex and diverse their diets really were.

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Bones recovered from some of the birds. (Dr Mariana Nabais/Frontiers)

Following in the Footsteps of the Neanderthal Chefs

In a new study just published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, a team of researchers from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution in Catalonia, Spain sought to re-create the methods the Neanderthals might have used to prepare the birds they hunted and prepared for consumption.

For the purposes of this hands-on study, the researchers collected the bodies of five wild birds from the Wildlife Ecology, Rehabilitation and Surveillance Centre (CERVAS) in Gouveia, Portugal that had died of natural causes. These included two collared doves, two carrion crows, and one wood pigeon, modern species that are closely related to the types of birds that would have shared the environment with European Neanderthals in 50,000 BC.

Relying on evidence from archaeological sites that has shed some light on Neanderthal cooking and butchering practices, the researchers did their best to prepare meals of roasted birds that would have likely appealed to the Neanderthal palate.

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A scientist defeathers one of the birds. (Dr Mariana Nabais/Frontiers)

Neanderthal Food Prep

To start with, the researchers plucked all the feathers from the birds by hand. For the next step they tried two different methods of butchering: one of the carrion crows and one of the collared doves were cut up from a raw state using a sharp flint flake, a common cutting tool in ancient times, while the remaining three birds were roasted over glowing-hot wooden coals first until they were fully cooked, and only then were they butchered.

The researchers were somewhat surprised to discover that the second method was much easier and convenient than the first.

“Using a flint flake for butchering required significant precision and effort, which we had not fully valued before this experiment,” explained Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution archaeologist Dr. Mariana Nabais, the study’s lead author, in a Frontiers news release.

“The flakes were sharper than we initially thought, requiring careful handling to make precise cuts without injuring our own fingers.”

The do-it-yourself approach adopted by the researchers was most enlightening, Dr. Nabais acknowledged.

“These hands-on experiments emphasized the practical challenges involved in Neanderthal food processing and cooking, providing a tangible connection to their daily life and survival strategies,” she said.

Corroborative Evidence

Leftover bird bones and flint flakes recovered from various archaeological sites had long suggested Neanderthals used the flakes to butcher small animals. And, in fact, the cut marks found on the bones from the new research project matched the shape and style of cuts found on bird bones taken from Neanderthal sites.

Thermal alterations and impact of heat exposure on wing bones after experimental exposure to heat of three bird specimens, Streptopelia decaocto, Corvus corone, and Columba palumbus. (Nabais et al./Frontiers)

Interestingly, the researchers discovered that cooking the animals was neither difficult nor time consuming.

“Roasting the birds over the coals required maintaining a consistent temperature and carefully monitoring the cooking duration to avoid overcooking the meat,” Dr Nabais said. 'Maybe because we de-feathered the birds before cooking, the roasting process was much quicker than we anticipated. In fact, we spent more time preparing the coals than on the actual cooking, which took less than 10 minutes.”

Discovering the Dizzying Diversity of the Neanderthal Diet

A lot of research has been aimed at identifying the ingredients of the typical Neanderthal diet. What has been discovered shows they embraced the hunting-gathering lifestyle fully, and were opportunistic about their choice of foods. While they may certainly have had preferences, it is known that they consumed large game (mammoths, bison, reindeer, woolly rhinos, wild sheep), small game (birds and rabbits), fruits, nuts, fish and seafood (crabs in particular), mushrooms, and wild vegetables of different types.

The researchers from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution believe their study does provide some useful information about Neanderthal dietary practices. Nevertheless, they know that more studies will need to be undertaken to determine just how much bird meat they consumed, and how exactly they prepared the birds they hunted and killed for consumption.

“The sample size is relatively small, consisting of only five bird specimens, which may not fully represent the diversity of bird species that Neanderthals might have used,” Dr. Nabais cautioned. “Secondly, the experimental conditions, although carefully controlled, cannot completely replicate the exact environmental and cultural contexts of Neanderthal life.  Further research with larger samples, varied species, and more diverse experimental conditions is necessary to expand upon these results.”

The full study has been published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology and is available at https://doi.org/10.3389/fearc.2024.1411853.

Top image: Bones of birds used in the experiments.  Source: Dr Mariana Nabais/Frontiers

By Nathan Falde