As we thought, the Neanderthal diet consisted of more than just fruit and raw meat. Charred remains of the earliest cooked food found in a cave complex in northern Iraq indicate that Neanderthals were gluttons.

The finds, says Chris Hunt, professor of cultural paleontology at Liverpool John Moores University and coordinator of the excavation, are the first available evidence that Neanderthals used sophisticated cooking methods and therefore a distinguished food culture.

Professor Hunt and his colleagues prepared some of their “recipes” using seeds they collected from the cave area. “We created something between a pancake and a tortilla, with a delicious nutty taste,” says the professor.

Food fossils, the oldest ever found, were found at Sanidar Cave, a Neanderthal settlement, in the Zagros Mountains. Scientists date them 70 thousand years ago and they were located in one of the many ancient hearths of the cave.

And in Argolis

The research project was not limited to Iraq, scientists using a scanning electron microscope also analyzed the burnt remains of food found in the Fragti cave in the southwest of Argolis, where people lived 12 thousand years ago.

A combinatorial study found that the Paleolithic diet was varied and food preparation was complex, with many cooking steps.

The study, published in the journal Antiquity, adds to the theory that both Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals ate a variety of plants in addition to meat. Wild fruits and wild herbs were paired with legumes such as lentils and wild mustard.

“Because Neanderthals didn’t have cooking utensils, we think they soaked the seeds in the folds of animal skin,” Professor Hunt explains. However, unlike today’s cooks, our ancestors did not peel the seeds, which removes particularly bitter substances from legumes. They achieved a similar result by soaking, rinsing, and finally mashing, hoping, on the one hand, to reduce, but not eliminate the natural taste of legumes, and also to make them easier to digest. If Neanderthals crushed seeds with rocks, it could be that the final texture of the food was rough. “Having tasted the final product of the recipe, we can easily understand why the Neanderthal’s teeth were in such poor condition.”