Researchers Find 400,000-Yr-Old Proof of Food Preservation, Humans Stored Bones Packed With Fat and Marrow to Eat Later

In the popular imagination, ancient humans are not associated with advanced practices like storing food for later consumption. However, a 2019 discovery in Israel, in the Qesem cave, countered this notion, according to New Scientist. The study, published in Science Advances, discusses the evidence collected from the cave.

Experts procured evidence in the cave which indicated that ancient humans stored animal bones and later ate their fatty bone marrow. The team found around 80,000 animal bone specimens inside the cave. "This is a game changer for our modern conceptions about our ancestors because it is believed that early hominids were not capable of or not accustomed to delayed consumption," said Ran Barkai at Tel Aviv University in Israel. As per an examination, humans lived in the cave around 200,000 to 400,000 years ago during the Middle Pleistocene period. This is the first time researchers have found proof of food preservation and delayed consumption from the Middle Pleistocene.

Researchers examined the specimens to understand how ancient humans accessed the bone marrow. They noted that on 78 percent of the bone surfaces there was evidence of cut marks. These kinds of cut marks usually appear when bone undergoes preservation and delayed consumption, according to experts. Researchers believe these markings happened when ancient humans tried to remove dried skin from bones that had undergone preservation. 

To verify these findings, researchers recreated some of the activities conducted by ancient humans. Seventy-nine bones from the limbs of red deer were exposed to natural outdoor conditions. The objective was also to track the degradation of bone marrow over the weeks. Keeping in mind the indoor conditions prevalent in the cave, researchers redeveloped a similar internal environment in the simulation. It was a nine-week exercise in which the experts removed the skin and flesh from these bones at various points. The short incisions and marks were noted to increase when the skin was removed after four or more weeks. These markings were also similar in pattern to the ones uncovered in the cave. 

The analysis concluded that the skin-covered bones did not lose much nutritional value even after enduring nine weeks of exposure during autumn. However, the fat in the specimens deteriorated after three weeks when kept in spring and indoor conditions. The exercise proved to researchers that the remains could have been used as a source of bone marrow by the Middle Pleistocene human population. Bone marrow was possibly so essential because of its fat richness. Such food sources were important for human communities that did not have much access to carbohydrates. 

The evidence associated with bone marrow extraction indicates that ancient humans in the Middle Pleistocene period had the cognitive ability to forecast and plan similar advanced activities. Barkai claims that such findings reflect the similarities between the human population from the Middle Pleistocene and modern humans. "This gives us a view of them as very similar to us and not as some primitive human creatures," he said.