Neanderthal dental tartar reveals plant-based diet and drugs [View all]

[JudyM]

Source: The Guardian

A diet of pine nuts, mushrooms and moss might sound like modernist cuisine, but it turns out it was standard fare for Spanish Neanderthals. Researchers studying the teeth of the heavy-browed hominids have discovered that while Neanderthals in Belgium were chomping on woolly rhinoceros, those further south were surviving on plants and may even have used naturally occurring painkillers to ease toothache.
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Writing in the journal Nature, Dobney and an international team of colleagues describe how they analysed ancient DNA – from microbes and food debris – preserved in the dental tartar, or calculus, of three Neanderthals dating from 42,000 to 50,000 years ago. Two of the individuals were from the El Sidrón cave in Spain while one was from the Spy Cave in Belgium.

The results reveal that northern Neanderthals had a wide-ranging diet, with evidence of a mushroom known as grey shag in their tartar, together with traces of woolly rhinoceros and wild sheep. By contrast Neanderthals from El Sidrón showed no evidence of meat eating – instead they appear to have survived on a mixture of forest moss, pine nuts and a mushroom known as split gill.

The difference was further backed up by DNA-based analysis of the diversity and make-up of microbial communities that had lived in the Neanderthals’ mouths.
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One of the Spanish Neanderthals is known to have had a painful dental abscess, while analysis of the tartar from the same individual yielded evidence of a parasite known to cause diarrhoea in humans.

To cope, the researchers add, the unfortunate individual might have been self-medicating. While previous work has suggested the El Sidrón Neanderthals might have exploited yarrow and chamomile, the tartar of the unwell individual shows evidence of poplar, which contains the active ingredient of aspirin, salicylic acid, and a species of penicillium fungus, suggesting the Neanderthal might have benefited from a natural source of antibiotics.

“Potentially this is evidence of more sophisticated behaviour in terms of knowledge of medicinal plants,” said Dobey. “The idea that Neanderthals were a bit simple and just dragging their knuckles around is one that has gone a long time ago, certainly in the anthropological world.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/mar/08/neanderthal-dental-tartar-reveals-plant-based-diet-and-drugs