Fermented meat with a side of maggots: A new look at the Neanderthal diet
Fermented meat with a side of maggots: A new look at the Neanderthal diet
Fermented meat with a side of maggots: A new look at the Neanderthal diet
Researchers reconstruct ancient diets by studying stable nitrogen isotope ratios.

Neanderthals’ cultural practices, similar to those of Indigenous peoples, might be the answer to the mystery of their high δ¹⁵N values. Ancient hominins were butchering, storing, preserving, cooking, and cultivating a variety of items. All these practices enriched their paleo menu with foods in forms that nonhominin carnivores do not consume. Research shows that δ¹⁵N values are higher for cooked foods, putrid muscle tissue from terrestrial and aquatic species, and, with our study, for fly larvae feeding on decaying tissue.
I mean, this makes sense. Other primates eats grubs. But I would never have come up with this theory without someone else suggesting it first.