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Early Modern Humans Included Aquatic Animals In Diet

Researchers from the University of Bradford and the University of Oxford in the UK and the University of Arizona and Washington University in the US report new evidence for the growing importance of aquatic animals in the diets of early modern humans inhabiting Europe between 20,000 and 28,000 years ago.

Compared to Neanderthals living in inland Europe up to 100,000 years earlier, who relied primarily on land animals for their protein, early modern humans supplemented their diets with a significant amount of fish and waterfowl.

The evidence has been outlined in a paper entitled "Stable isotope evidence for increasing dietary breadth in the European mid-Upper Paleolithic," which appears in today's (May 22) edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Michael Richards of the Department of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bradford said, "This new information highlights the differences in diets between Neanderthals and early modern humans and shows that modern humans were more flexible and adaptable in their dietary choices. This ability to adapt and use a range of resources could perhaps have given us, as a species, a competitive edge over the Neanderthals."

The study compares chemical analyses of collagen samples from nine early modern human skeletons found in Europe and western Asia with previously published results on five Neanderthals from the western portion of the same general geographic area.

The authors conclude that the apparently broader dietary spectrum of the early modern humans may have increased their resilience to natural pressures and human population growth in Europe at the time.

The work was supported in part by the Wenner-Gren and L.S.B. Leakey Foundations and the Prehistoric Society.

[Contact: Rachael Ellis]

22-May-2001

 

 

 

 

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