I've mentioned before that, if one is trying to emulate a past hominid's diet in an attempt to have a more 'ancestrally-aligned' pattern of eating, it is rather difficult to accurately do this because it is rather difficult to discern what our ancestors actually ate (among a host of other reasons: plant domestication, methods of processing, which hominid, etc etc).
Researchers in this field are able to chemically analyze calcified plaques from fossilized neanderthal teeth. There are a couple issues with this - most notably - the last meal effect: just because you find these remnants doesn't necessarily mean that individuals were eating these foods regularly. It would require a large cohort of fossilized teeth from diverse regions to make a more robust statement that Neanderthals regularly consumed these food products.
Past assumptions were that Neanderthals were overwhelmingly carnivorous and rarely consumed plants foods; recently, analyses of tooth plaque have shown evidence of a more diverse array of plant consumption - I've covered this a bit in the past. The recent debate (1) now focuses on whether Neanderthals were actually consuming some of these strange plant foods, like chamomile and yarrow. The original interpretation for this research was that Neanderthals saw some therapeutic or medicinal component to these foods, despite their bitter taste and lack of caloric density. However, these foods would presumably be found eaten by grazing animals, and thus, be found partially digested in their stomachs and intestines. If Neanderthals were hunting these animals and eating their stomach contents, as seen in Inuits, an alternative explanation for the presence of these food items in dental plaques presents itself.
I hope to see more in depth chemical research on these plaques to determine whether there is evidence of gastric/intestinal protease degradation that would point towards these food items coming from animal stomachs, or if the plaques appear more mechanically digested (this is simply a conjecture regarding future research - this is not my field of expertise). As of now, we can't really say which is true - though, this alternative hypothesis would fall back in line with past isotopic analyses (2) that suggested more predominant carnivorous eating behaviour.
As an aside, the researchers mention that maybe this is where individuals were getting their vitamin C - I am doubtful, seeing as they were more probably consuming the adrenal glands, a source of ascorbic acid (3). I can't find vitamin C content data on chamomile but I'd reckon to say that it's irrelevant as a source of ascorbic acid, unless consumed in large quantities, which is unlikely seeing as preliminary data suggests Neanderthals have similar bitter taste receptors as modern homo sapiens (4).
It continues to be quite difficult to truly reconstruct the overall diet of our ancestors, and consequently, hard to base your modern diet off of this data. Eating minimally/unprocessed continues to appear to be good for your health in the current food environment, but don't go eating chamomile instead of getting vaccinated because you think that's what Neanderthals used for medicine.
1. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/20/neanderthals-diet-plants-herbs-stomachs
2. http://www.pnas.org/content/106/38/16034.full
3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15666839
4. http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/08/07/rsbl.2009.0532.full
Researchers in this field are able to chemically analyze calcified plaques from fossilized neanderthal teeth. There are a couple issues with this - most notably - the last meal effect: just because you find these remnants doesn't necessarily mean that individuals were eating these foods regularly. It would require a large cohort of fossilized teeth from diverse regions to make a more robust statement that Neanderthals regularly consumed these food products.
Past assumptions were that Neanderthals were overwhelmingly carnivorous and rarely consumed plants foods; recently, analyses of tooth plaque have shown evidence of a more diverse array of plant consumption - I've covered this a bit in the past. The recent debate (1) now focuses on whether Neanderthals were actually consuming some of these strange plant foods, like chamomile and yarrow. The original interpretation for this research was that Neanderthals saw some therapeutic or medicinal component to these foods, despite their bitter taste and lack of caloric density. However, these foods would presumably be found eaten by grazing animals, and thus, be found partially digested in their stomachs and intestines. If Neanderthals were hunting these animals and eating their stomach contents, as seen in Inuits, an alternative explanation for the presence of these food items in dental plaques presents itself.
I hope to see more in depth chemical research on these plaques to determine whether there is evidence of gastric/intestinal protease degradation that would point towards these food items coming from animal stomachs, or if the plaques appear more mechanically digested (this is simply a conjecture regarding future research - this is not my field of expertise). As of now, we can't really say which is true - though, this alternative hypothesis would fall back in line with past isotopic analyses (2) that suggested more predominant carnivorous eating behaviour.
As an aside, the researchers mention that maybe this is where individuals were getting their vitamin C - I am doubtful, seeing as they were more probably consuming the adrenal glands, a source of ascorbic acid (3). I can't find vitamin C content data on chamomile but I'd reckon to say that it's irrelevant as a source of ascorbic acid, unless consumed in large quantities, which is unlikely seeing as preliminary data suggests Neanderthals have similar bitter taste receptors as modern homo sapiens (4).
It continues to be quite difficult to truly reconstruct the overall diet of our ancestors, and consequently, hard to base your modern diet off of this data. Eating minimally/unprocessed continues to appear to be good for your health in the current food environment, but don't go eating chamomile instead of getting vaccinated because you think that's what Neanderthals used for medicine.
1. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/20/neanderthals-diet-plants-herbs-stomachs
2. http://www.pnas.org/content/106/38/16034.full
3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15666839
4. http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/08/07/rsbl.2009.0532.full
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