Neanderthals Feasted on Seafood, Seabirds, Perhaps Even Dolphins | Hacker News Reader

Neanderthals Feasted on Seafood, Seabirds, Perhaps Even Dolphins

nytimes.com

67 pointsThevet54 comments

Can’t help but feel we wouldn’t have to go too far back in time to discover people ate whatever they could.

Are you likely to find evidence of fruit having been eaten?

I think it's safe to say yes, given that human's evolutionary ancestors lost the ability to produce vitamin C ~60 million years ago and there's no reason to assume they didn't require a similar diet to our own. To your larger point, that has always been the case from what I've seen from archeological and anthropological studies. Take Pokeweed for example which is toxic unless it's boiled three times in salt water.

However, the larger point of the article is that Neanderthals were a much more intelligent and adaptable species than we've given them credit. Given this evidence of food it would not be surprising if they found net sinkers or other tools associated with fishing. It seems every time we learn more about Neanderthals the more they resemble our species than not.

Not only were they smarter than we give them credit for, they were smarter than modern humans. There's nothing about intelligence that guarantees not becoming extinct.

They had bigger brains. In all the studies of humanoid fossils, there's a clear relationship between brain size and ability to make tools etc. (which is presumably caused by intelligence). It would be very strange that this is the sole exception to that relationship. This relation is defined between different species--irrelevant to the more controversial claim that brain size matters between humans (of the same species) which is probably why you're rejecting the idea.

They might have had bigger brains in relation to body weight than humans, but encephalization quotient isn't a perfect measure of intelligence. Without having a living breathing Neanderthal to compare us to we really can't say. We might have a unique brain structure or some of difference in our brains that fill make this difference meaningless or irrelevant. The wikipedia on encephalization quotient actually has a section dedicated to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient#EQ_in...

Domesticated animals are generally much dumber than their wild phenotype-- intelligent animals are generally reluctant to take orders. There's some evidence homo sapiens self-domesticated: trading off intelligence for superior group coordination: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/early-humans-domesti...

Structure matters a lot. Look how intelligent crows are, in spite of having such small brains. Humans do all sorts of things Neanderthals never did, so maybe we have differently structured brains that allow us to do them.

Humans never did anything either for approximately 100% of history. Newton could have lived a caveman's life if his top priority was basic survival, regardless of the quality of his hardware.

True, but if you are going to argue Neanderthals are smarter than homo sapiens, you have to ask why they didn't do anything that humans couldn't when both were foraging societies.

Its really too much of a leap from they were "more smart than we give them credit" to "smarter than modern humans" really with no evidence.

Basically, why aren't we treating the null hypothesis as "neanderthals and modern humans eat exactly the same foods"? Rather than "neanderthals don't eat at all" which seems to be the case here.

Of course, the Homo family are very adaptable and fruits and honey have been eaten where available.

Evidence of fruits or tubers or seeds is harder to come by from the Paleolithic era because plant fossils are rare (vs bones that are common), but more recent tests looking at dental tartar does confirm a very diverse diet.

"And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that, with it, Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy.' And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and..."

I like it, but I don't get it.

It's a quote from 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'.

Yes, a reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20

...

Skip a bit, Brother

Googling quotes is hard

Is it widespread to only call mammals meat? I.e. is "fish meat" widely understood to be a contradiction?

I noticed the same thing :-)

I wouldn't know how widespread it is, but I'd point out this is a cultural and linguistic thing. The quoted researcher's native language is Portuguese, a language in which "carne" means "meat", but if left unqualified means "red meat", and more often than not means simply "beef". One can explicitly say "carne de boi" (cow meat) or "carne de porco" (pork meat) for clarity if necessary.

In Brazil for example, a country of shared heritage and language, even pork is culturally considered to be white meat (or at least, not "red meat") in certain situations.

I believe the word in this context speaks more to Portuguese cultural attitudes, from an epistemological perspective, than to English language usages.

If I look up "carne de peixe" (literally "fish meat") on Google you can find results, but they seem few. To me (I'm a native speaker as well) it sounds odd, though not ungrammatical or paradoxical. Just weird.

Lent is a time period during which Christian believers are supposed to abstain from luxury and worldly pleasures, including fasting of meat. The current cultural perspective is ultimately probably at least somewhat influenced by the fact that in Catholic theology, fish is not included as meat during lent, and may be consumed.

It's okay to eat fish, 'cause they don't have any feelings.

Nirvana

Not in American English. Lobster meat and Crab meat both make sense. The canned meat in my local grocery store has Tuna, Salmon, Chicken, Sardines etc...

But at the same time, you'll find loads of people who don't eat meat. They just eat fish. Try asking a catholic if they eat meat during Lent, and they'll all tell you absolutely not while chowing down on a fish sandwich.

Yet those same people insist that you believe them and not your lying eyes and taste buds, when they call their crackers Jesus meat. I don't think they're using a very falsifiable scientific definition of "meat".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation

>This council officially approved use of the term "transubstantiation" to express the Catholic Church's teaching on the subject of the conversion of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, with the aim of safeguarding Christ's presence as a literal truth, while emphasizing the fact that there is no change in the empirical appearances of the bread and wine.

Is the transubstantiation cannibalism because it claims to be consuming Jesus?

https://www.quora.com/Is-the-transubstantiation-cannibalism-...

"It's not technically cannibalism, because we're just lying about crackers being Jesus meat. And we're not lying, because you can't trust your own eyes and scientific experiments."

There was a whole long serious historical (and hysterical) debate about if or when the crackers stopped being Jesus during digestion, and whether or not Jesus turned into poop, or if you could poop Jesus. (And by logical extension, could you eat last week's poop if you were out of crackers?)

https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/64057/on-th...

>My Question: Does the real presence of the Eucharist persist even after digestion to the point of being taken out of the body by defecation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stercoranism

>Stercoranism (from Latin stercorarius, "belonging to dung", from stercus, "dung") is a supposed belief or doctrine attributed reciprocally to the other side by those who in the eleventh century upheld and those who denied that the bread and wine offered in the Eucharist become in substance, but not in form, the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

>Those who upheld the view that they do change, but only in substance, accused their opponents of asserting that what is presented as the body and blood of Christ is no more than what subsequently is subject to the normal digestive processes after ingestion, eventually passing through the intestines and being excreted through defecation. Those who held the opposite view retorted that the same accusation applied rather to the upholders of the change of substance.

>On this, see the explanation given by the Protestant theologian and historian Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, who calls it an "imaginary heresy".

[...]

>Karl August von Hase said that early Church theologians, such as Origen (184–253), were willing to allow that the consecrated elements of Christ’s body were digested and excreted in the manner of typical food,

Here's the official talking point:

>In relation to the process of digestion, the Catholic Church's teaching has been expressed in this way: "The substance of Christ's body is not subject to processes of digestion or to any chemical reactions. The qualities of bread of course behave in their normal way, undergoing a change as they are affected by digestion. Our Lord's substantial presence ceases as these qualities cease to retain those characteristics proper to bread."

So officially, the bread stops being Jesus meat once it's digested, before you can poop him. Clever!

We sometimes call fish "steaks". I often eat tuna steaks. So to me fish is meat.

Steaks are cut across the grain of the muscle as opposed to fillets which are cut along the grain. Tuna just happens to be large enough that you can do that.

Cauliflower steaks being a thing throws a wrench in this reasoning.

Also, nut meat(s) is common in the US at least.

the word "meat" is even used to describe parts of a fruit or squash. you could maybe argue that "fish meat" is closer to this usage than its most literal meaning.

Food snobbery does occasionally induce enough cognitive dissonance that fish gets promoted to "not meat," yes. Such faux pas are expected to be politely ignored, especially when serving to distinguish our polite selves from the hoi polloi. You can even get away with pretending chicken isn't quite meat when you can't pretend to have the means to afford a fish diet. For the purposes of social status beef and pork are the meats that are understood to be low class.

This is an awful take. What is “meat” is culturally mediated, and in many places around the world the views are different. So too is your view that beef is lower class than chicken(!)

So some people, “meat” is just red meat. But to still others the phrase “coconut meat” is sensible, meaning the soft white part of the coconut.

“Fish meat” would make sense to someone who says coconut meat, but probably not to someone who wonders if pork counts as meat..

I'm pretty sure the GP was being sarcastic, especially since they started out referring to such distinctions as snobbery.

I don't need explanation. These are my admittedly US centric observations of social gymnastics. They're honest, sincere and correct and I'm perfectly aware that they risk offence among the prevailing audience.

Same gymnastics, as you've eloquently put, can be found in Eastern Europe as well. In my view it's a byproduct of certain meats/animals being in low-supply/high-demand, especially during the previous decade. The resulting indoctrination can be extensive. As an anecdote, I've seen a vegetarian being served chicken, because it's not meat.

Maybe I should have said "mocking" instead of "sarcastic". I believe you were mocking the idea that beef is low-class, and it went over the head of the person to whom I replied.

My apologies if you really do believe beef is low-class, but I really doubt that's your belief.

ground beef maybe, but certainly not the $24/lb ny strips at whole foods.

I read a claim the the most reliable distinguishing quality between neanderthalensis and sapiens was that the former was never found in possession of something traded from far away. Would welcome correction or enlargement.

Another distinguishing trait is that Homo Sapiens are dreamers (e.g cave paintings).

Not sure how relevant or true the claim is, but it's surely romantic.

Or we might simply be more aggressive and that's it. A species determined on dominating its environment will win against one that's not, all other things being equal.

Otherwise Neanderthals were larger than us and had similar cognitive capabilities, they were also using tools and language etc.

Neanderthals made cave paintings. Probably non-cave paintings too, but those didn't last.

Not sure about possession of something traded from far away, but apparently, neanderthals traveled long distances.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22486912

Why is it shocking, you don't have the luxury to pick and choose...eat all you can, including your own kind, if needed.

Somehow I can't picture that being a very feast like affair.

Dolphins?? I draw the line there those damn Neanderthals!

The poor little dolphins!

Ha ha just kidding, I've had dolphin it's very very good, but I feel it's immoral and a little like cannibalism since they are probably smarter than us.

Pigs are supposed to be as smart as chimps, making them in essentially the smartest animals out there except for dolphins and humans. However, we as humans design, build and run industrial systems that breed, feed and torture hundreds of thousands of them constantly, so we can eat them.

They're intelligent, but I've never heard that suggestion. It's not as though they use tools.

Years ago I thought the reason we didn't kill certain animals is they're cuter than others. Maybe, but there's a perceived scale of demonstrated consciousness. If an animal appears more intelligent and compassionate (e.g. chimps), we're more put off on slaying them.

Tool use in animals is fairly common. Generally we haven't seen it in the past because we simply weren't looking.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S16165...

The cost/benefit of simple tools favors chimps more than pigs.

Some pigs are pretty smart. Not sure if smart as dogs. Pig parts have been transplanted into humans for medical reasons with good results. So we are kind of similar. I don't eat pig for these reasons. I don't have a problem with others eating it though. There's no shortage of pigs and they are domesticated so it's easy to make more.

When I ate dolphin I didn't know it was dolphin. It was so good. Then I found out it was dolphin. I think no one should eat dolphin because if they do soon dolphins will be extinct because they are that yummy. Dolphins don't do well in captivity and haven't been domesticated. So we can't just ramp up the number of dolphins. Eating them is a real risk to their survival as a species.

Are you sure you didn't have dolphin fish AKA mahi mahi?

AKA Dorado

but I have seen a smallish dolphin or porpoise for sale in a roadside market in the caribbean, about 20 years ago so its not unknown for people to eat them.

(I forget exactly where it was but perhaps Bequia - I don't know if Bequia still does it now but they were subject to aboriginal rights of whaling)

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