This week at Discovery News you can read about some of the earliest evidence for human consumption of birds outside of Africa. Around 150,000 years ago, Homo heidelbergensis cavemen ate ducks that they either roasted or consumed whole and raw. The feast happened at Bolomor Cave in Valencia, Spain, according to a recent study.
Ruth Blasco, a researcher at the Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution in Tarragona, Spain, and colleague Josep Fernandez Peris found and analyzed 202 duck bones from the cave. The birds appear to have been fire roasted and hominid-nibbled to the bone. Here's the story in photos:
(All images provided by Ruth Blasco.)
Tooth-marked duck bones
Hearths found in Bolomor Cave, Spain
Ruth Blasco in her lab
Bolomor Cave stratigraphy. The duck bones were found on Level 11, which corresponds to the Middle Pleistocene period. Other levels yielded Neanderthal and modern human remains, so this cave housed many hominids over the years.
Photos showing the cave site
The excavation
Please visit The Real Cavemen to learn more about Homo heidelbergensis and other early cave dwellers.
COMMENTS (0)