(CNN) — Buzz started to build about a decade ago around the meat-heavy paleo diet — an approach to eating that’s based on what our Stone Age relatives supposedly liked to consume.
But the truth is that we know relatively little about what our earliest ancestors ate, and what we’ve learned in recent years suggests that there was more than just mammoth steak on the menu.
Neanderthals who lived 90,000 years ago in a seafront cave in what’s now Portugal regularly caught and ate crabs, roasting them on coals, according to a new study.
The finding is significant because it builds upon evidence challenging the long-standing notion that a taste for seafood — rich in omega-3 fatty acids that are important for brain growth — was one of the unique factors that made our own species, Homo sapiens, cognitively smarter than our extinct Neanderthal counterparts.
Meanwhile, in Kenya, another archaeological dig has revealed that early hominins feasted on hippos 2.9 million years ago, butchering the carcasses with the help of distinctive and unexpected implements.
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