Neanderthals Had Diverse Diets: Not Only Humans Ate Salmon

About 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals coexisted with humans. Yet Neanderthals quickly vanished from the face of the Earth replaced by our ancient ancestors. One theory holds that humans were able to exploit a wide variety of dietary resources while Neanderthals were rigid in their diets. Now, though, scientists have discovered that Neanderthals may not have been as restricted in their diets as researchers once believed.

In order to examine the diets of modern humans and Neanderthals, researchers studied animal bones found in caves occupied by these two types of hominids. More specifically, they analyzed bones found in a cave on the northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains, called Kudaro 3. Once inhabited by Neanderthals, this cave showed signs of salmon bones.

In the past, researchers thought that only modern human took advantage of fish as a dietary resource. Neanderthals, in contrast, were thought to just target large herbivorous mammals, such as horse, bison and mammoths. The fact that these fish bones were found in a Neanderthal cave, though, seems to show that these hominids also had a diverse diet.

The researchers wanted to be sure that the Neanderthals were indeed consuming the fish, though. It's difficult to exclude the possibility that large predators that lived nearby could have been responsible for part of this accumulation. Asiatic cave bears and cave lions in particular could have contributed.

In order to find out whether the fish were consumed by Neanderthals or predators, the researchers examined carbon, nitrogen and sulphur isotopes in faunal bone collagen. They then compared these isotopic signatures between predators and their potential prey. In the end, they found that salmon were neither part of cave bear diets nor cave lion diets.

"This study provide indirect support to the idea that Middle Palaeolithic Hominins, probably Neanderthals, were able to consume fish when it was available and that, therefore, the prey choice of Neanderthals and modern humans was not fundamentally different," said Herve Bocherens, one of the researchers, in a news release.

So what did kill off the Neanderthals? That's a good question. Currently, researchers are still investigating that particular mystery. That said, it's unlikely that dietary differences are what finally led to the Neanderthals' demise.

The findings are published in the journal Quaternary International.