June 15, 2001
Researchers have reported new evidence that shows early modern man ate significant amounts of fish and waterfowl, not just meat.
Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, and an international team of scientists documented the growing importance of aquatic animals --fish, mollusks and/or birds --in the diets of early modern humans in Europe 20,000-28,000 years ago. Compared with Neandertals living in inland Europe up to 100,000 years earlier, who relied primarily on land animals for their protein, early modern humans supplemented their diets with fish and waterfowl.
The team's report was published May 22 in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and is posted on its Web site, www.pnas.org.
The study compares chemical analyses of collagen samples from nine early modern human skeletons found in Europe and western Asia with previously published results on five Neandertals from the western portion of the same general geographic area.
"As the early modern human population increased, so did the competition for food," Trinkaus said. The authors concluded that early modern humans' broader diet may have increased their resilience to natural pressures and human population growth in Europe at the time.
Analyzing the carbon and nitrogen values of early modern human fossils showed a significant amount of inland freshwater aquatic foods in their diets, Trinkaus said. "By comparing the diets of Neandertals to early modern humans, one sees that as their culture became more advanced, so did their diets," he added.