Published 20:52 IST, October 10th 2019
Israel archeologists find that early cavemen ate bone marrow
Scientists in Israel have reportedly found evidence which reveals that early humans used to save animal bones to feast on the fatty bone marrow for later
- World News
- 2 min read
Scientists in Israel have reportedly found evidence which revealed that early humans used to save animal bones to feast on the fatty bone marrow later. The earliest humans, called Hominins who used to live in Qesem Cave in central Israel during the Palaeolithic period around 400,000 to 220,000 years ago preserved the long bones of fallow deer. This discovery is made by a team of Israeli and Spanish scientists. According to an Israeli media, the experiments were made on dead deer which disclosed that the bone marrow remains edible for nearly nin-weeks after the death of the animal.
How did they figure this out?
Reportedly, the archaeologists had noticed peculiar cut marks on the fossilized bones with stone tools. A particular explanation could not be perceived at Qesem as these were never noticed before. The reason being, leg bones are long with less meat-bearing areas and there was nothing to eat there. This further increased the curiosity of the researchers at Tel Aviv University. After morphometrical analysis followed by 3D scanning, the authors disclosed that the teeth from cavemen from Qesem had huge difference and are yet unknown. Moreover, The cut marks near bone areas were found on 78% of nearly 80,000 animal bone specimens which were analyzed.
Hominis in Israel
The Hominins reportedly arrived in Israel nearly 1.5 million years ago and feasted on the elephant over a million years. By the time Qesem cave was occupied by them, other animals were gone, and only elephants were available. Moreover, previous research by Barkai also revealed that 300,000 years ago, elephants in Italy were consumed and had their bone marrow also extracted. However, in that report, the marrow was fresh as compared to this one by the scientists in Tel Aviv University which was the first of its kind discovery, which also revealed that the humans preserved there edibles to consume later.
Updated 22:06 IST, October 10th 2019