From Newsgroup: sci.anthropology.paleo


https://www.sciencenews.org/article/maggots-neandertal-diet

The original paleo diet might have included fewer
succulent steaks and more juicy maggots.

Neandertals are often depicted at the top of the
food chain for their time, consuming as much meat
as lions or hyenas. But maggots growing on
rotting meat might have been the real signature
dish of the Neandertal diet, researchers report
July 25 in Science Advances.

The idea that Neandertals were extreme carnivores
comes partly from the high levels of a specific
type of nitrogen called N-15 in their bones.
Nitrogen has two stable forms. N-14 is lighter
and a lot more common in nature, while N-15 is
heavier and much rarer.
...
So, if Neandertals probably couldnrCOt eat as much
meat as lions or hyenas, where does all the N-15
come from?

Rotting meat. This idea, suggested by
anthropological archaeologist John Speth of the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, was based on
ethnographic records of the eating habits of
Indigenous communities with similar lifestyles to
those of Neandertals.
...
As the meat ferments, the N-14 is probably
evaporating in the form of compounds like ammonia,
increasing the proportion of N-15 the maggots are
eating and retaining in their bodies. As they
consume this rotting flesh, the maggots also
convert it into rCLa fatty additive substance, so
that when yourCOre eating it, yourCOre getting not
only the lean meat, but yourCOre getting fat with
it,rCY Beasley says. rCLItrCOs a more complete,
nutritious food item.rCY
...


https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adt7466
Neanderthals, hypercarnivores, and maggots:
Insights from stable nitrogen isotopes

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