Neanderthals Munched On 'Aspirin' And Woolly Rhinos

Neanderthals once dined on woolly rhinoceroses and wild sheep, and even self-medicated with painkillers and antibiotics, according to a new analysis of their dental plaque. But the diets of Neanderthals — the closest known extinct human relative, which co-existed and sometimes bred with humans before going extinct about 40,000 years ago — varied depending on where they lived. Researchers sequenced the ancient DNA of dental plaque from five Neanderthal skeletons — two from Spain's El Sidrón Cave, two from Belgium's Spy Cave and one from Italy's Breuil Cave. (However, the plaque sample from the Breuil Cave Neanderthal "failed to produce amplifiable [DNA] sequences," and one of the Spy Cave individuals had DNA plaque contamination, so the researchers excluded both from the plaque analysis, they wrote in the study.) [In Photos: New Human Ancestor Possibly Unearthed in Spanish Cave] Dating back between 42,000 and 50,000 years, the plaque is the oldest dental plaque on record to be genetically examined. The analysis revealed that some, but not all, Neanderthals were meat lovers. The Neanderthal at Spy Cave dined heavily on meat, including the woolly rhinoceros and wild sheep — an unsurprising discovery, given that the bones of woolly rhinoceroses, reindeer, mammoths and horses were found within Spy Cave, and wild sheep lived throughout Europe during that time period, the researchers said. This Neanderthal also ate edible gray shag mushrooms, the analy...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news