Neanderthal leftovers
Our ancestors were plant-based and it turns out, they were eating bread 70,000 years ago!
Many think our Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer ancestors mostly ate meat and foraged fruit. However, evidence that they regularly processed and cooked plant foods is rapidly expanding. Charred remnants of what may be the world’s oldest cooked meal ever found were discovered in caves in northern Iraq. Thought to be about 70,000 years old, the food remnants were recovered from a Neanderthal dwelling 500 miles north of Baghdad in the Zagros Mountains.
Microscopic examination of the charred remains revealed the use of pounded pulses as a common ingredient in cooked plant foods. The research adds to mounting evidence of plant consumption by both early modern humans and Neanderthals. Wild nuts and grasses were often combined with pulses, such as lentils, nuts, tubers and wild mustard.
Professor Chris Hunt, who coordinated the excavation, and his colleagues even recreated one of the recipes using seeds gathered from nearby the caves: “It made a sort of pancake-cum-flatbread which was really very palatable – a sort of nutty taste”.
Linda Geddes, Guardian science correspondent, put the recipe to the test here and says: “It was still good enough that I finished the entire patty and contemplated cooking a second.”
Kabukcu C, Hunt C, Hill E et al. 2022. Cooking in caves: Palaeolithic carbonised plant food remains from Franchthi and Shanidar. Antiquity. 1-17.
About the author
Dr. Justine Butler
Justine joined Viva! in 2005 after graduating from Bristol University with a PhD in molecular biology. After working as a campaigner, then researcher and writer, she is now Viva!’s head of research and her work focuses on animals, the environment and health. Justine’s scientific training helps her research and write both in-depth scientific reports, such as White Lies and the Meat Report, as well as easy-to-read factsheets and myth-busting articles for consumer magazines and updates on the latest research. Justine also recently wrote the Vegan for the Planet guide for Viva!’s Vegan Now campaign.
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