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Reconstructing Neanderthal diet: The case for carbohydrates. J Hum Evol 2021; 162:103105. [PMID: 34923240 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2021.103105] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/20/2021] [Revised: 10/19/2021] [Accepted: 10/20/2021] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
Evidence for plants rarely survives on Paleolithic sites, while animal bones and biomolecular analyses suggest animal produce was important to hominin populations, leading to the perspective that Neanderthals had a very-high-protein diet. But although individual and short-term survival is possible on a relatively low-carbohydrate diet, populations are unlikely to have thrived and reproduced without plants and the carbohydrates they provide. Today, nutritional guidelines recommend that around half the diet should be carbohydrate, while low intake is considered to compromise physical performance and successful reproduction. This is likely to have been the same for Paleolithic populations, highlighting an anomaly in that the basic physiological recommendations do not match the extensive archaeological evidence. Neanderthals had large, energy-expensive brains and led physically active lifestyles, suggesting that for optimal health they would have required high amounts of carbohydrates. To address this anomaly, we begin by outlining the essential role of carbohydrates in the human reproduction cycle and the brain and the effects on physical performance. We then evaluate the evidence for resource availability and the archaeological evidence for Neanderthal diet and investigate three ways that the anomaly between the archaeological evidence and the hypothetical dietary requirements might be explained. First, Neanderthals may have had an as yet unidentified genetic adaptation to an alternative physiological method to spare blood glucose and glycogen reserves for essential purposes. Second, they may have existed on a less-than-optimum diet and survived rather than thrived. Third, the methods used in dietary reconstruction could mask a complex combination of dietary plant and animal proportions. We end by proposing that analyses of Paleolithic diet and subsistence strategies need to be grounded in the minimum recommendations throughout the life course and that this provides a context for interpretation of the archaeological evidence from the behavioral and environmental perspectives.
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Naito YI, Meleg IN, Robu M, Vlaicu M, Drucker DG, Wißing C, Hofreiter M, Barlow A, Bocherens H. Heavy reliance on plants for Romanian cave bears evidenced by amino acid nitrogen isotope analysis. Sci Rep 2020; 10:6612. [PMID: 32313007 PMCID: PMC7170912 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-62990-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2019] [Accepted: 03/19/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Heavy reliance on plants is rare in Carnivora and mostly limited to relatively small species in subtropical settings. The feeding behaviors of extinct cave bears living during Pleistocene cold periods at middle latitudes have been intensely studied using various approaches including isotopic analyses of fossil collagen. In contrast to cave bears from all other regions in Europe, some individuals from Romania show exceptionally high δ15N values that might be indicative of meat consumption. Herbivory on plants with high δ15N values cannot be ruled out based on this method, however. Here we apply an approach using the δ15N values of individual amino acids from collagen that offsets the baseline δ15N variation among environments. The analysis yielded strong signals of reliance on plants for Romanian cave bears based on the δ15N values of glutamate and phenylalanine. These results could suggest that the high variability in bulk collagen δ15N values observed among cave bears in Romania reflects niche partitioning but in a general trophic context of herbivory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuichi I Naito
- Department of Geosciences, Biogeology, University of Tübingen, Hölderlinstraße 12, 72074, Tübingen, Germany.
- Nagoya University Museum, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan.
| | - Ioana N Meleg
- "Emil Racoviță" Institute of Speleology, Romanian Academy, Calea 13 Septembrie, nr. 13, 050711, Sector 5, Bucharest, Romania.
| | - Marius Robu
- "Emil Racoviță" Institute of Speleology, Romanian Academy, Calea 13 Septembrie, nr. 13, 050711, Sector 5, Bucharest, Romania
| | - Marius Vlaicu
- "Emil Racoviță" Institute of Speleology, Romanian Academy, Calea 13 Septembrie, nr. 13, 050711, Sector 5, Bucharest, Romania
| | - Dorothée G Drucker
- Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (S-HEP), University of Tübingen, Hölderlinstraße 12, 72074, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Christoph Wißing
- Department of Geosciences, Biogeology, University of Tübingen, Hölderlinstraße 12, 72074, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Michael Hofreiter
- Institute for Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty for Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, 14476, Potsdam, OT Golm, Germany
| | - Axel Barlow
- Institute for Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty for Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, 14476, Potsdam, OT Golm, Germany
- School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham, NG11 8NS, UK
| | - Hervé Bocherens
- Department of Geosciences, Biogeology, University of Tübingen, Hölderlinstraße 12, 72074, Tübingen, Germany
- Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (S-HEP), University of Tübingen, Hölderlinstraße 12, 72074, Tübingen, Germany
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Guiry E. Complexities of Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Biogeochemistry in Ancient Freshwater Ecosystems: Implications for the Study of Past Subsistence and Environmental Change. Front Ecol Evol 2019. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2019.00313] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
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Stable isotopes reveal patterns of diet and mobility in the last Neandertals and first modern humans in Europe. Sci Rep 2019; 9:4433. [PMID: 30872714 PMCID: PMC6418202 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-41033-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/14/2018] [Accepted: 02/27/2019] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Correlating cultural, technological and ecological aspects of both Upper Pleistocene modern humans (UPMHs) and Neandertals provides a useful approach for achieving robust predictions about what makes us human. Here we present ecological information for a period of special relevance in human evolution, the time of replacement of Neandertals by modern humans during the Late Pleistocene in Europe. Using the stable isotopic approach, we shed light on aspects of diet and mobility of the late Neandertals and UPMHs from the cave sites of the Troisième caverne of Goyet and Spy in Belgium. We demonstrate that their diet was essentially similar, relying on the same terrestrial herbivores, whereas mobility strategies indicate considerable differences between Neandertal groups, as well as in comparison to UPMHs. Our results indicate that UPMHs exploited their environment to a greater extent than Neandertals and support the hypothesis that UPMHs had a substantial impact not only on the population dynamics of large mammals but also on the whole structure of the ecosystem since their initial arrival in Europe.
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Jaouen K, Richards MP, Le Cabec A, Welker F, Rendu W, Hublin JJ, Soressi M, Talamo S. Exceptionally high δ 15N values in collagen single amino acids confirm Neandertals as high-trophic level carnivores. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2019; 116:4928-4933. [PMID: 30782806 PMCID: PMC6421459 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1814087116] [Citation(s) in RCA: 72] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Isotope and archeological analyses of Paleolithic food webs have suggested that Neandertal subsistence relied mainly on the consumption of large herbivores. This conclusion was primarily based on elevated nitrogen isotope ratios in Neandertal bone collagen and has been significantly debated. This discussion relies on the observation that similar high nitrogen isotopes values could also be the result of the consumption of mammoths, young animals, putrid meat, cooked food, freshwater fish, carnivores, or mushrooms. Recently, compound-specific C and N isotope analyses of bone collagen amino acids have been demonstrated to add significantly more information about trophic levels and aquatic food consumption. We undertook single amino acid C and N isotope analysis on two Neandertals, which were characterized by exceptionally high N isotope ratios in their bulk bone or tooth collagen. We report here both C and N isotope ratios on single amino acids of collagen samples for these two Neandertals and associated fauna. The samples come from two sites dating to the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition period (Les Cottés and Grotte du Renne, France). Our results reinforce the interpretation of Neandertal dietary adaptations as successful top-level carnivores, even after the arrival of modern humans in Europe. They also demonstrate that high δ15N values of bone collagen can solely be explained by mammal meat consumption, as supported by archeological and zooarcheological evidence, without necessarily invoking explanations including the processing of food (cooking, fermenting), the consumption of mammoths or young mammals, or additional (freshwater fish, mushrooms) dietary protein sources.
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Affiliation(s)
- Klervia Jaouen
- Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany;
| | - Michael P Richards
- Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby BC V5A 1S6, Canada
| | - Adeline Le Cabec
- Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Frido Welker
- Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
- Evolutionary Genomics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, DK-1353 Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - William Rendu
- De la Préhistoire à l'Actuel: Culture, Environnement et Anthropologie, CNRS-University of Bordeaux, 33615 Pessac, France
| | - Jean-Jacques Hublin
- Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
- Chaire Internationale de Paléoanthropologie, Collège de France, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Marie Soressi
- Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, 2311 EZ Leiden, The Netherlands
| | - Sahra Talamo
- Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
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O'Connell TC. 'Trophic' and 'source' amino acids in trophic estimation: a likely metabolic explanation. Oecologia 2017; 184:317-326. [PMID: 28584941 PMCID: PMC5487837 DOI: 10.1007/s00442-017-3881-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 70] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2016] [Accepted: 05/08/2017] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Amino acid nitrogen isotopic analysis is a relatively new method for estimating trophic position. It uses the isotopic difference between an individual's 'trophic' and 'source' amino acids to determine its trophic position. So far, there is no accepted explanation for the mechanism by which the isotopic signals in 'trophic' and 'source' amino acids arise. Yet without a metabolic understanding, the utility of nitrogen isotopic analyses as a method for probing trophic relations, at either bulk tissue or amino acid level, is limited. I draw on isotopic tracer studies of protein metabolism, together with a consideration of amino acid metabolic pathways, to suggest that the 'trophic'/'source' groupings have a fundamental metabolic origin, to do with the cycling of amino-nitrogen between amino acids. 'Trophic' amino acids are those whose amino-nitrogens are interchangeable, part of a metabolic amino-nitrogen pool, and 'source' amino acids are those whose amino-nitrogens are not interchangeable with the metabolic pool. Nitrogen isotopic values of 'trophic' amino acids will reflect an averaged isotopic signal of all such dietary amino acids, offset by the integrated effect of isotopic fractionation from nitrogen cycling, and modulated by metabolic and physiological effects. Isotopic values of 'source' amino acids will be more closely linked to those of equivalent dietary amino acids, but also modulated by metabolism and physiology. The complexity of nitrogen cycling suggests that a single identifiable value for 'trophic discrimination factors' is unlikely to exist. Greater consideration of physiology and metabolism should help in better understanding observed patterns in nitrogen isotopic values.
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Affiliation(s)
- T C O'Connell
- Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3DZ, UK.
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