2025年8月13日 星期三

一項新研究表明,史前尼安德特人的飲食中蛆蟲含量豐富 (2/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line picked up the following:

Prehistoric Neanderthal diets were maggot heavy, a new study suggests (2/2)

Katie Hunt, CNN

Fri, July 25, 2025 at 12:24 p.m. PDT·7 min read

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‘No brainer’

It was a “no brainer” that Neanderthals ate maggots, said Karen Hardy, a professor of prehistoric archaeology at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

Hardy, who wasn’t involved in the study, said the authors provided a “strong argument in favor of maggot consumption,” although such behavior is unlikely to be conclusively proven because maggot remains do not survive in the archaeological record.

“The surprise element is more to do with our Western perspective on what is edible and what is not,” she added.

Today, at least 2 billion people worldwide are estimated to consume insects as part of traditional diets, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

The study also noted that, according to historical accounts, many indigenous peoples such as the Inuit “viewed thoroughly putrefied, maggot-infested animal foods as highly desirable fare, not starvation rations.” Many such groups, according to the study, “routinely, often intentionally, allowed animal foods to decompose to the point where they were crawling with maggots, in some cases even beginning to liquify, and inevitably emitting a stench so overpowering that early European explorers, fur trappers, and missionaries were sickened by it.”

Knud Rasmussen, a polar explorer from Greenland, recorded the following culinary experience, cited in the study, in his 1931 book “The Netsilik Eskimos: Social Life and Spiritual Culture.”

“The meat was green with age, and when we made a cut in it, it was like the bursting of a boil, so full of great white maggots was it. To my horror my companions scooped out handfuls of the crawling things and ate them with evident relish. I criticised their taste, but they … said, not illogically: “You yourself like caribou meat, and what are these maggots but live caribou meat? They taste just the same as the meat and are refreshing to the mouth.”

The study also noted that maggots are not unknown in Western culinary traditions, noting the Sardinian cheese casu marzu is replete with the larvae of cheese skipper flies.

Beasley said that Northern latitude groups still process these foods today and consume them safely when prepared following traditional practices.

Limitations

Beasley’s research on modern-day corpses was exploratory and had several limitations, she cautioned.

The work, which involved small sample sizes, focused on human muscle tissue, not the tissue or organs of animals that might have been hunted by Neanderthals. What’s more, the fly larvae, which came from three different families, might have differed from those that existed in the late Pleistocene, which ended around 11,000 years ago.

The study also didn’t account for the wide variety of climates and temperatures that would have had an effect on stored meat in the Stone Age. She also added that the human body tissue wasn’t cooked, processed or prepared in any way.

Beasley has spoken with researchers in Alaska in the hopes of connecting with native groups that would be interested in sharing traditional food preparations. Her goal is to better understand how that might affect the nitrogen level.

The new research has “opened a fascinating line of inquiry” into the culinary practices of Stone Age hunter-gatherers such as Neanderthals, said Wil Roebroeks, professor emeritus of paleolithic archaeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He wasn’t involved in the research.

“It certainly gives a fresh — if that is the right word here — perspective on Neanderthal and other Late Pleistocene humans’ diets,” Roebroeks added.

Translation

一項新研究表明,史前尼安德特人的飲食中蛆蟲含量豐富 (2/2)

(繼續)

毋庸置疑

蘇格蘭格拉斯哥大學史前考古學教授 Karen Hardy 表示,尼安德特人食用蛆蟲是「毋庸置疑」的。

Hardy並未參與這項研究,但她表示,作者們提供了 強有力的論點來支持食用蛆蟲 , 儘管由於考古記錄中沒有蛆蟲的遺體而不太可能最終證實這種行為。

她補充道: 「令人驚訝的因素更多是與我們西方人對可食用和不可食用的視角有關」。

根據聯合國糧食及農業組織估計,如今全球至少有20億人將食用昆蟲作為傳統飲食的一部分。

研究也指出,根據歷史記載,許多原住民民族,例如 Inuit 人,「將徹底腐爛、蛆蟲滋生的肉類食物視為極佳的食物,而非充飢的口糧」。研究指出,許多這樣的群體「經常、通常是故意地讓動物性食物腐爛到爬滿蛆蟲的程度,在某些情況下甚至開始液化,不可避免地散發出令人作嘔的惡臭,令早期的歐洲探險家、毛皮獵人和傳教士感到噁心」。

該研究引用了格陵蘭極地探險家 Knud Rasmussen 在其1931年出版的《內特西利克愛斯基摩人:社會生活與精神文化》一書中記錄了的以下一段的烹飪體驗經歷。

肉隨著時間變綠,我們切開它,感覺就像膿腫破裂,裡面爬滿了巨大的白色蛆蟲。令我驚恐的是,我的同伴們一把一把地舀出這些爬蟲,津津有味地吃著。我批評它們的味道,但他們……卻不無邏輯地說:你自己也喜歡吃馴鹿肉,這些蛆蟲不就是活馴鹿肉嗎?它們的味道和肉一樣,而且吃起來清爽可口。

研究也指出,蛆蟲在西方烹飪傳統中並非聞所未聞,例如撒丁島的 casu marzu 乳酪就充滿乳酪蠅的幼蟲。

Beasley 表示,北緯地區的人們至今仍在加工這些食物,只要按照傳統做法烹調,就能安全食用。

 

局限

Karen Hardy 提醒說,Beasley 對現代屍體的研究是探索性的,存在一些限制。

這項研究的樣本量較小,著重於人體肌肉組織,而不是可能被尼安德特人獵殺動物的組織或器官。此外,來自三個不同科的蠅幼蟲可能與末期更新世(約1.1萬年前結束)的蠅幼蟲有所不同。

這項研究也沒有考慮到石器時代氣候和溫度的多樣性對儲存肉類的影響。她還補充說,無論如何人體組織沒有經過任何烹飪、加工或準備。

Beasley 與阿拉斯加的研究人員進行了交流,希望能與那些有興趣分享傳統食物烹飪方法的當地群體建立聯繫。她的目標是更好地了解這可能會如何影響氮含量。

荷蘭萊頓大學舊石器時代考古學榮譽教授 Wil Roebroeks 表示,這項新研究因探索尼安德特人等石器時代狩獵採集者的烹飪實踐而開闢了一條引人入勝的探索路線 。他並未參與這項研究。

Roebroeks 補充道: 「這無疑為尼安德特人和其他晚更新世人類的飲食提供了一個全新的 - 如果這個詞用得恰當的話 - 視角」。

So, a chemical signature in Neanderthal remains suggests their robust meat-eating habit. Now, new research hints at an unexpected Stone Age food - maggots - that could explain a distinctive chemical signature detected in the bones of prehistoric humans, including Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, and this gives a fresh perspective on Neanderthal and other Late Pleistocene humans’ diets.

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