Bones are a valuable source of fat. But the extraction of the calorie nutrient requires a lot of time and a sophisticated technology. Finds from Central Germany now show that the Neanderthals won bone fat around 125,000 years ago. To do this, they brought the bones of encouraged animals to a central collection point, smashed them with the help of stone tools and cooked them out. The discovery provides new insights into the nutrition and technology of the Neanderthals.
Fett was a critical resource for the hunters and collectors of the Stone Age to meet their own food needs. In order to gain as many calories as possible from the kits, early people like the Homo erectus bones broke open to consume the mark from it. So far, however, more intensive further processing, such as cooking the bones, has only been trusted to the Homo sapiens. The oldest evidence of this planning and time-consuming technology came from around 28,000 years ago.
Brushed bones and heated
Now new finds show that the Neanderthals systematically gained fat from bones 125,000 years ago. At the Neumark-Nord excavation site west of Leipzig, a team around Lutz Kindler from the Leibniz Center for Archeology in Neuwied came across a “fat factory” by the Neanderthals. “We found bones of at least 172 large mammals such as cattle, horses and deer, which were processed on a lake shore in a narrowly limited area,” report the researchers. “This included the removal of bone marrow and the production of tens of thousands of small bone fragments for the extraction of bone fat.”
In total, the researchers found almost 120,000 tiny bone fragments, of which many traces showed that indicate the destruction with the help of stone tools. The finding is underpinned by more than 16,000 flint tools and other artifacts that were recovered in a range of only 50 square meters. In addition, the researchers met with numerous evidence of the use of fire: they found the remains of charcoal as well as heated stones and the structure and surface of many bones suggested that they had been heated. The bones were probably crushed and boiled out so that the fat it contains could be skimmed off.
Central processing place
The large accumulation of bones and tools in a small area indicates that the Neanderthal parts were specifically transporting their hunting prey to Neumark-Nord for further processing. “In the course of the year, the Neanderthals in the region around Neumark-Nord kept going hunting, and if they succeeded in succumbing more animals than they needed for their immediate food needs, they may have stored the surpluses such as high-fat bones,” the team explains. “Then the hiding places were emptied over a comparatively short period of time and the stored carcasses were brought to Neumark-Nord.”
From the researcher’s point of view, the location on the lake shore could have been particularly suitable for the Stone Age “fat factory”. Because all the resources required were available here: fuel from the surrounding vegetation, fire stones for the production of tools and water for cooking. “The Neanderthals were extremely planned – from hunting to the transport of the carcasses to fat maintenance in a place specially used for this,” says Kindler. “They knew about the high nutritional value of fat and understood how to make it efficiently accessible.”
Even if the study focuses on the processing of animal components, the researchers indicate that the surroundings of Neumark-Nord also have a wide range of reliable and easily available plant food. The boiled bones could also have been important for eating plants. For example, the high -fat bone broth could have made vegetable stews more nutritious.
Source: Lutz Kindler (Leibniz Center for Archeology, Neuwied) et al., Science Advances, Doi: 10.1126/Sciadv.adv1257
