Researchers learn tooth wear upon patterns in ancientHomoreveal that – as climate began to fluctuate gravely in the Ice Age – Neanderthals conform their diets in a unlike direction than our own specie . The findings , published inPLOS Onethis calendar week , propose that human dietetic scheme give our species an edge over Neanderthals .
The Neanderthal lineage survived for 100 of thousands of years throughout westerly Eurasia , successfully grapple with both harsh and changing environments . Why they went nonextant some 40,000 age ago is still a mystery . Some research worker would expect Neanderthals to be better adapted thanHomo sapiens – a specie that evolved in Africa – to hold out in Europe during uttermost climate instability . But , innovative humans interchange Neanderthals , suggesting that our species had some natural selection advantage .
To inquire the influence dietary scheme had on Neanderthal decline , a team led bySireen El Zaatariof Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen analyzed microwear texture on the fossilized molars of 52 Neanderthals andHomo sapiensspanning 37 palaeolithic web site across western Eurasia . The team then correlated these patterns with paleoclimate data .
As fluctuate climate shape shift ecosystems and habitats , Neanderthals train an timeserving attack : They adapted their dieting to resource that were promptly uncommitted . That entail feed mostly meat in cold , steppe environments and supply some plants , seminal fluid , and testicle when they were in wooded country .
Meanwhile , anatomically innovative man perplex to their strategy and retained a bombastic proportion of flora in their diet . " To be capable to do this , they may have developed tools to extract dietetic resources from their surround , " El Zaatari say in astatement . Rather than change their diet , our species invested in technical institution .
These divergence in subsistence strategy – which were establish around the same fourth dimension the two line of descent made contact – may have helped our mintage remain despite change in food supplies linked to half a million years of severe climatic fluctuations .
