Neanderthals liked seafood. Who knew? NY Times

"Neanderthals are often portrayed chowing down on mammoth meals and woolly rhino ribs. But an analysis of their leftovers from a coastal cave in Portugal suggests fish and mollusks claimed a special place on their Paleolithic palates.

“We all have that image of the primitive Neanderthal that eats lots of meat,” said Filipa Rodrigues, an archaeologist at the University of Lisbon and author of a paper published Thursday in Science. “Now, we have this new perspective that they explored the marine resources like Homo sapiens did.”

Archaeologists have previously found evidence that Neanderthals ate, collected and wore jewelry fashioned from shellfish. But evidence they consumed large amounts of fish has been lacking. Some scientists have argued Neanderthals did not have the skill or wit to catch fish as their Homo sapiens contemporaries did in Africa, and may have lost out on consuming aquatic animals rich in fatty acids that could have aided with brain development.

But deep in Cueva de Figueira Brava, which housed Neanderthals about 100,000 years ago, Dr. Rodrigues and her colleagues have uncovered more than 560 fish bones, as well as remains from clams, mussels, crabs, waterfowl, seabirds, seals and dolphins. The findings suggest Neanderthals cast a wide net to add sea creatures to their dinner menus, and the researchers say it shows the behavior of the archaic species was comparable to modern humans that lived at the time."  NY Times

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In a time of plague - an interesting tidbit.

The DNA people say that I and SWMBO have traces of Neanderthal blood.  That gives me a warm and cuddly feeling.  I wonder if they liked frog legs.  I could use a few of those right now.

On a sad note my favorite restaurant has shuttered its windows and closed down, hopefully just for the duration.  R.T.s Restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia.  They do Chesapeake Bay Seafood and Louisiana cooking.   The place is rated as one of the fifty best restos in the South.  That means from the Potomac to New Orleans.  The She Crab Soup is to die for.

IMO both Andrew Cuomo and Trumpy are doing creditable jobs although the big threat is to the economy.  My SWAG is that some combination of existing drugs is going to put down CODIV-19.  pl

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/science/neanderthals-fishing-ocean.html

Comments

[turcopolier]

Mark Logan
You sound like someone with a Neanderthal DNA deficiency.

[Fred]

Optimax,

A clarification, it wasn't the governor by EO but the state department of licensing and regulation. Buraucrats in action.
https://www.michigan.gov/documents/lara/Reminder_of_Appropriate_Prescribing_and_Dispensing_3-24-2020_684869_7.pdf

[Mark Logan]

Pat.

I love seafood.

[turcopolier]

Mark Logan

But, you cook it.

[Mark Logan]

Pat,

On occasion ;).

[different clue]

Fred,

My understanding was that the Michigan Governor was intending the do-not-presribe order on hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to doctors who were apparently prescribing it to themselves and all their family for pre-emptive stockpiling in case of corona. This has created enough of a shortage that it threatens current availability of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for the classical diseases and conditions which have been being treated with these drugs right along.

I forget what hydroxychloroquine has been being used for right-along, but azithromycin is used for certain respiratory bacterial infections. I know it has stomped down my own bacterial bronchitis cases real effectively in the past. I would be surprised if this order is taken to mean " no Z-Pack for bacterial bronchitis", for example.

[different clue]

Reading about the presence of traces of Neanderthal DNA in many of us and Denisovan DNA in some, I begin to wonder whether it is the same traces in everybody who has them. Or whether some people have some traces and other people have other different traces.

If different people have different traces, I wonder what would happen if some people decided to place themselves on a registry of "different traces" and treated eachother as partners in a huge dating service. Obviously their first priority would be to meet, mate and marry -- or not -- for love. But given that first prime directive was always followed, what if the people of this community also secondarily selected eachother to try and bring different traces of Neanderthal DNA together? And over the centuries the people of this group could begin amplifying their percentage of Neanderthal DNA? They could never breed back to a True Total Neanderthal, but perhaps they could breed forward to a kind of Neo-anderthal descendants.

[The Twisted Genius]

Different Clue,

This post sparked a desire to delve deeper into the Neanderthals in me as well. I recommend this University of California series of short lectures and a Natural History Museum presentation on Neanderthal DNA. It will answer a lot of your questions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCzcPSMz1tA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl-hI2IsCo0

[turcopolier]

AD

Veras que?

[different clue]

TTG,

Thank you for these links. I will spend some screentime watching them instead of some other things I was going to watch.

I remember seeing once a photograph of a Neanderthal tip-most little finger bone next to a Modern big toe bone. The Neanderthal little-finger tip bone was much bigger than the modern big toe bone.
My first feeling was jealousy and my first thought was " Wow! I wish I had hands like that."