Author: Laurel Hamers / Source: Science News
WASHINGTON — Kimberly Foecke has a great relationship with her local butcher.
Though she buys loads of meat, Foecke is not a chef or the owner of a small zoo. She’s a paleobiologist who studies what Neandertals ate. And that involves, in her words, “experimental putrefaction, which is a fancy way of saying, I rot meat, all day, every day.”
Scientists know Neandertals ate a lot of meat. Fossilized bones from the hominids tend to have high levels of a heavier form of nitrogen, nitrogen-15, compared with the lighter form, nitrogen-14. Nitrogen-15 is least abundant in plants, and becomes more concentrated further up the food chain because it’s harder to break down than nitrogen-14.
But exactly how much meat these hominids ate — and what else was in their diet — is somewhat controversial. Evidence such as tooth scrapings suggests that Neandertals also ate a variety of plants. But the nitrogen-15 measurements point to “an unreasonably huge amount of meat” in the diet, says Foecke, a researcher at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Those levels tend to be even higher than what’s seen in top carnivores like hyenas, which…
The post This scientist watches meat rot to decipher the Neandertal diet appeared first on FeedBox.