Neanderthals didn't survive on a diet of berries and animal flesh. Neanderthals may have been food lovers after charred remnants of the world's oldest cooked meal were found in a cave in northern Iraq.
Chris Hunt is a professor of cultural paleoecology at John Moores University and coordinated the excavation.
Hunt and his colleagues have tried to recreate a recipe using seeds from the caves. Hunt said that it made a pancake-cum-flatbread which was very enjoyable.
The ruins of a Neanderthal dwelling 500 miles north of Baghdad were the location of the oldest burned food remnants. They were found in one of the ancient fireplaces in the caves.
The team used a scanning electron microscope to analyse ancient charred food fragments recovered from Franchthi Cave in southern Greece.
The findings show that the Palaeolithic diet was varied and involved a number of steps in food preparation.
Evidence for the first time of soaking and pounding pulse seeds by both Neanderthals and early modern humans can be found at both sites.
There were some unique preferences for specific plant flavours found in the evidence that we found.
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Evidence of plant consumption by both Neanderthals and early modern humans has been mounting in recent years. Lentils and wild mustard were often combined with wild nuts and grass.
The Neanderthals probably soaked their seeds in a fold of an animal skin.
Neanderthals didn't hull their seeds to remove the outer coat, but they did eliminate bitter-tasting compounds. It is possible that they wanted to reduce but not eliminate the natural flavours of the pulse.
The final product may have been a bit rough. Hunt thinks we can understand why the Neanderthals had teeth in a degraded state.
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