Neanderthals Dined on Crab 90,000 Years Ago

Pieces of shells in a Portuguese cave suggest the early humans cooked and ate crustaceans, according to a new study

Teresa Nowakowski
Staff contributor

February 8, 2023 5:18 p.m.

In a Portuguese cave beside the Atlantic Ocean, Neanderthals may have made brown crabs a menu mainstay.

Archaeologists have unearthed evidence that the early humans were cooking and eating crab meat 90,000 years ago, according to a study published Tuesday in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology. The findings are just the latest of many to show Neanderthals as more advanced than the primitive human ancestors scientists once thought they were.

The team uncovered a variety of shellfish remnants at the cave site, called Gruta da Figueira Brava. These included bits of barnacles and sea urchins, but the majority were pieces of shells from brown crabs.

“You can immediately identify them on site as being crab claws, especially in Portugal, because we have a tradition of eating crabs a lot,” Mariana Nabais, an archaeologist at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution and lead study author, says to the New York Times’ Kate Golembiewski. “It was a big surprise, especially because when we were digging there, we still didn’t have that idea of Neanderthals actively eating shellfish.”

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/neanderthals-dined-on-crab-90000-years-ago-180981604/