The Neanderthals invented it 125,000 years ago with their “fat factory”

Although demonized for a long time, fat is one of the essential macronutrients for the correct functioning of our body. More recent studies and habits are putting the fats in their place placing some like Allied in healthy dietsbut thousands of years ago, who already knew the role of fat in the body were the Neanderthals.

To the point that just discover A giant “Factory” of fat in Germany.

Short. Neumark-nord It is an archaeological site that is southwest of Berlin and a few kilometers from Leipzig. It is a place not alien to researchers, since a study in the area a few years ago revealed How the Neanderthals already did what we are doing so well: deeply modify the landscape in which they live.

Without leaving the customs of those Neanderthals who inhabited the area 125,000 years ago, we have new details about their customs. Posted in the magazine Science Advancesa new study shows how Our ancestors They had an “industry” around the processing of the bones of large mammals with a single objective: extract bone fat to consume it little by little.

Fat factories. A study of more than 2,000 bone fragments and dozens of flint tools It has allowed researchers to observe in many of them signs of having used to crush, have been crushed and have an exposure to intense heat. In some specific areas there was a concentration of bones rich in marrow, as well as anvils and folk that would have been the Tools used by Neanderthals.

This concentration reinforces the idea that the site was used as a kind of “factory” to extract fat in a rather laborious way. According to the researchers, to get that bone fat, they broke the bones of 172 mammals such as deer, horses or cattle. Once they reached the marrow, the small fragments in water crushed and warmed it to extract the fat. It was a planned, long and, the researchers affirm in Livescienceorganized to maximize the extraction of nutrients from animal remains.

Bones damaged by a hammer

Fighting “rabbit starvation”. Why complicate life so much to get fat? The reason is simple and we must return to the diet. Follow one balanced diet To be healthy it means that we must eat a certain amount of fats, proteins and carbohydrates. When one of the tables of the table decomposes, health problems appear.

That they put so much effort to get fat in this way may mean that there were times (perhaps the coldest) in which Carbohydrates scarce and could not feed exclusively with proteins. A decompensation thus (which we now do with Diets like Keto) It is dangerous, above all, if it is accompanied by an intense rhythm of life in which energy is needed. Consuming too much protein without sufficient fat can cause something called “starring rabbit”, A potentially deadly condition that is caused by excessive consumption of lean meat without enough fat.

And it is not that the rabbit is the animal that suffers it. It was baptized like this because Arctic Explorers They fed almost exclusively with similar rabbits and animals and fell seriously ill because our body cannot metabolize large amounts of proteins without sufficient fat. They only improved when they could hunt animals with more fat.

Ahead of the clock. Our body may burn carbohydrates or fat to obtain energy, since Protein is not a good “fuel”and if the carbos were scarce, the Neanderthals turned to fat. Where from? Of what they had closer: the bones of the animals that had hunted to feed. That they realized this implies that perhaps we should stop seeing them as those little sophisticated “hunters” that we can imagine sometimes. It also indicates that They were organized and quite ingenious.

And, more important than this consideration, that large fat factory in Germany advances the resource intensification industry clock in almost 100,000 years. Before this analysis, the oldest evidence of a similar industry Databa 28,000 years ago.

Images | Athree23

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