When we think of Neanderthals, we imagine a series of filthy primitive beings who hunted everywhere and survived on berries and raw meat. But most of these assumptions are wrong. Charred remains of what appears to be the world’s oldest cooked food have been unearthed in a cave in northern Iraq, suggesting that Neanderthals they were great gourmets and delicate with recipes.

Neanderthals? Recipes?

Yes, 70,000 years ago Neanderthals created the world’s oldest “pancake”, which is also considered the oldest recipe. It contained wild beans, mustard seeds and ground pistachios, watered down and mixed with precision. It can be said that first crepe they were actually created by them.

According to a study published in the journal Antiquity, Neanderthals, prehistoric humans who lived on Earth thousands of years ago, they may not be that wild and they are actually pretty good “chefs” as it sounds. “Our findings are the first true indication of a complex cuisine, and therefore a food culture, among Neanderthals,” said Chris Hunt, professor of cultural paleoecology at Liverpool John Moores University, who coordinated the excavation.

Scanning electron microscope images of charred food.

While the idea that Neanderthals had little knowledge and that their diet was predominantly meat-based still persists, new findings disprove the notion that they were uneducated. In fact, as one of the authors Ceren Kabukçu explains, Neanderthals advanced cooking methods and recipes for making a type of unleavened artisan bread.

“It seems that Neanderthals crushed or ground, then soaked a mixture of grains and weeds, wild legumes such as wild lentils. wild pistachio and sometimes weed seeds and pieces of peas, they then cooked the resulting mixture over a hot stone fire. Animal skin”.

This case is the earliest known example of food mixing and preparation. But above all it is designed and planned to enhance the flavor. In fact, the researchers decided to recreate that cuisine with the same foods and described the result as an incredibly delicious walnut pancake. And not only that, the researchers found evidence of “blends” of seeds included in food, which explains why they have unique preferences for the flavors of certain plants. was not eating.

However, unlike today’s cooking methods, the Neanderthals did not shell their seeds, a process that largely removed the bitter-tasting compounds. This may suggest that they do not want to reduce but eliminate the natural flavor of legumes. Assuming they crushed the seeds with local rocks, the final product could have been pretty sandy too. “After trying the recreated recipe, I think we can understand why Neanderthals had teeth in such a degraded state,” the authors write.

How did we get here? The study was carried out in Shanidar Cave, a Neanderthal settlement located in the Zagros Mountains, 500 kilometers from Baghdad, Iraq. The area was discovered in the 1950s and believed to be 70,000 years old. There, archaeologist Ralph Solecki found ten skeletal remains of Neanderthal men, women, and children. One of them appeared to have suffered multiple wounds, possibly as a result of medical treatment, and the other’s grave had remains of flowers, suggesting a burial.

In conclusion, we can say that research reveals little difference between the diet of today’s people and the diet of thousands of years ago. According to the researchers, “plant foods with multiple ingredients, produced with multiple preparation steps, turned out to be very ancient.”

Image: Tyler B. Tretsven | Ceren Kabukcu