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Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)

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Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)

#71
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in there. > At this location, researchers found that Neanderthals not only broke bones to extract marrow but also crushed large mammal bones into tens of thousands of fragments to render calorie-rich bone grease through heating them in water.

AFAIK Neanderthals didn't have clay pots - how would they hold the water to heat it and put the bone pieces in? EDIT: I asked claude and it doesn't know for sure but guessed "stone boiling into an organic container — animal stomach, hide, or a bark vessel — remains the most plausible explanation for how they heated the water."

One point here is that you can boil water over a fire in a flammable container.

Here, this isn't about boiling, but similar: "Because the Neanderthals had no pots, we presume that they soaked their seeds in a fold of an animal skin," says Chris Hunt, a genuine (checks) expert in cultural paleoecology.

https://archaeologymag.com/2022/11/neanderthals-cooked-surpr...

Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)

#73
post #63

I read this as 'RAT factories' - like Neanderthal decided to breed thousands of rats presumably for food. Assuming rats were meaty and not taboo then, as they are now.

They’re still meaty and they aren’t taboo everywhere!

Whenever I go to the family farm I check to see if there are any fat juicy grilled rats at the local market. Alas, I’m still too squeamish to eat them, but I’m working up to it!

Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)

#74
post #63

I read this as 'RAT factories' - like Neanderthal decided to breed thousands of rats presumably for food. Assuming rats were meaty and not taboo then, as they are now.

Your comment reminded me of the Great Hanoi Rat Massacre (I won't spoil the punchline):

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hanoi-rat-massacre-190...

Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)

#75
post #63

I read this as 'RAT factories' - like Neanderthal decided to breed thousands of rats presumably for food. Assuming rats were meaty and not taboo then, as they are now.

I keep reading Neanderthal rat factories too! HP Lovecraft would be pleased with us.

Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)

#76
post #3
post #2

This pairs nicely with the recent publications around Neanderthal cognitive abilities and how there likely similar to ours ( https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/04/neanderthal-brains-m... ).

I find things like that hard to perfectly square with observations like the Flynn Effect (“the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world over the 20th century”): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

The Flynn effect isn’t real.

https://www.cremieux.xyz/p/the-demise-of-the-flynn-effect

Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)

#77
post #53
post #46

Fascinating. Considering the industrial scale fat production that the neanderthals managed to operate according to this article, it makes me wonder even more whether we still understand why exactly they went extinct in 80 thousand years later.

The answer that seems to be emerging from several different lines of research is that a) they always had fairly low fertility and b) they didn't really go extinct as such, they just intermixed with Homo Sapiens Sapiens and because the later had much higher fertility, Neanderthal genes got diluted down to the present ~2% in the Eurasian population.

Sounds plausible indeed. Anyways, neanderthals operating a large scale fat production 125 thousand years ago could be a good plot for another hollywood movie scenario. Any takers?

Re: Neanderthals ran 'fat factories' 125k years ago (2025)

#79
post #74
post #63

I read this as 'RAT factories' - like Neanderthal decided to breed thousands of rats presumably for food. Assuming rats were meaty and not taboo then, as they are now.

Your comment reminded me of the Great Hanoi Rat Massacre (I won't spoil the punchline): https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hanoi-rat-massacre-190...

I've heard exactly the same story about snakes, but that took place in British India.

Probably that (the one I heard) derived from this one.

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