by Neanderthals who live 125,000 years ago may have a mass fat of animal bones in “factories”, according to a study.
According to archaeological research, which were published in Science Advances, they have gotten fat from crushed animal bones in the Neumark-Nord region in Central Germany.
While many bones that were expansed less marks over the archaeological site, the researchers found that many of the marine-rich bones are located in clusters, which they call “fat factories”.
The process required careful planning, special tools and detailed nutritional skills.
The use emphasizes the long-term assumptions about Neanderthal skills, the study commissioned by the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.
Prof. Wil Roebroeks, the co-author of the study, said: “This attitude that Neanderthals were stupid is another data point that proves something else.”
Dr. Lutz Kindler, the first author of the study, added: “Neanderthals clearly managed resources with precision planning hunts, transport of slaughter body and the fat in a tasks.”
Before this statement, the earliest evidence for this type of fatty rangers came to only 28,000 years, thousands of years after Neanderthals had disappeared from the fossil stock.
The Neumark-Nord 2/2B website was excavated from 2004 to 2009 by all year round campaigns.
In addition to 16,500 Flint tools, hammerstones and plenty of signs of the fire, the researchers found more than 118,000 bone fragments.
Two thirds of the bone material measure less than 3 cm – the tiny fragments used for fat extraction.
Fat, like humans, was a crucial survival resource for Neanderthals, especially for hunters and collectors that were dependent on animal food, and bone grease provided a high -calorie solution in times when other fat sources became scarce.
The analysis also showed that they had built fires, with signs of heating bones, stones and charcoal from controlled fires.
The Neanderthals had positioned themselves on the edge of a lake, which would have given them direct access to water.
The researchers have also proposed that Neanderthals may have operated sophisticated caching systems.
Cutting was essential for hunter collectors in the north of Northern Latitude, which could not survive without stored food.
The concentration of 172 large mammals in such a small area indicates that bones in the landscape were stored over the landscape and later transported to the processing place in intensive rendering periods.
Prof. Sabine Gaudzinksi-Windheuser, the co-author of the study, said: “In fact, bone production requires a certain bone volume to make this labor-intensive processing worth, and the more bone gathering the more profitable.”
The study showed that the Neumark-Nord lakes could have made it easier for “pond memory”-a method in which carcasses were immersed in cold water for preservation.
Prof. Roebroeks said: “What Neumark-Nord makes so extraordinary is the preservation of an entire landscape, not just a single location.
“We see Neanderthals, who chase the deer in one area and slaughter minimally, work intensively in another in another and – as this study shows – renders fat from hundreds of mammals skeletons in a centralized place.”
