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Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

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Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#191

Post by bjornsing »

prometheus76 wrote: post #64
bjornsing wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure you have a 100C heatsink within millimeters, but I still find it surprising that the outside layer of the basket wouldn't burn away slowly. Probably because the water slowly permeates through the outside layer of the basket and evaporates there. A lot of energy can be absorbed that way.

I'm not sure that's the mechanism at work because I have boiled eggs using plastic cups and also waxed paper cups many times. I don't think any water is boiling through. The cup itself is staying at 100C, which is below its ignition point.

Over an open flame?

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#192

Post by josefx »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #156
xorcist wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the whole of paleo-anthropology "knew" that humans couldn't boil things until the invention of pottery Is that really true? That sounds unlikely when there are so many contemporary counterexamples. If you have an interest in cooking, there are several traditional meals where cooking is done in other ways. Especially so for indigenous people who have little access to metals or clay. For example on Borneo the traditi…

Ya, I don't believe ```paleo-anthropology "knew" that humans couldn't boil things until the invention of pottery```, it doesn't pass 'the laugh test'. There are many survivalist youtube channels that demo multiple methods to boil water without pottery [1][2]. If I were an anthropologist, I would be looking at modern survivalist methods to get inspiration for 'ancient' habits. Surely the folks that have studied their…

> There are many survivalist youtube channels

There is often a knowledge gap between different fields of expertise, someone else already cited medical doctors and psychologists reinventing well known mathematics badly. Also youtube attracts copy cats that use modern tools out of frame, so it isn't a reliable source of information. I can already see the discoveries "Great wall of china most likely build by single man with a stick, just ignore the excavator tracks".

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#193

Post by quacksilver »

xorcist wrote: post #148
jbotz wrote: post #6

When I first read this a question jumped out at me: Wait, Neanderthals were able to render fat? That requires boiling, and doesn't boiling require pottery? This led me down a bit of a rabbit-hole. It turns out that no, you don't need pottery to boil things, because you can do it just fine in combustible materials like animal hide or birch bark... so long as you keep the water level consistently high enough, because t…

> the whole of paleo-anthropology "knew" that humans couldn't boil things until the invention of pottery Is that really true? That sounds unlikely when there are so many contemporary counterexamples. If you have an interest in cooking, there are several traditional meals where cooking is done in other ways. Especially so for indigenous people who have little access to metals or clay. For example on Borneo the traditi…

I'm also surprised that no one would have thought to use a stone crucible before pottery, or some sort of concave piece of stone

Or cooked something in a natural hot spring or natural outlet where boiling/near-boiling water forces its way to the surface.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#194

Post by samuell »

pbmonster wrote: post #24
josefx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there already an overlap in the upper 90% between humans and apes? I don't know how much the neanderthal DNA differed back then, but it couldn't be more than that, could it? So wouldn't 3% of the total be at least a third of the parts that did differ?

It's always confusing how those DNA comparisons are worded. We share almost 99% of our DNA with chimps, for example. But this just means that if you go down the genome, we have 99% of the same types of genes. And that's true even though we don't even have the same number of chromosomes as chimps! (We also share 50% of DNA with bananas - which just shows how incredibly complex basic stuff like cell respiration is.) Th…

The 99% identity with chimps is extremely misleading without clear qualification.

The fact that it has been used without qualification has a lot to do with the fact that most of our genome was assumed to be junk, which we know today is not the case, per the ENCODE project for example.

Thus, the 99% number needs to stop being perpetuated.

Today we know that the alignable parts (parts that are similar enough that they can be aligned with each other) are down in the 80s percents between humans and chimps, which can be digged out from e.g. this recent big study (some numbers are in the paper, and some needs to be digged out of the supplementary material):

Yoo, D. et. al. (2025). Complete sequencing of ape genomes. Nature, 1-18. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08816-3

Then remember that a 15%-ish difference with chimps means hundreds of millions of base pairs of difference.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#195

Post by alecmg »

boringg wrote: post #52
Youden wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In high school science class we boiled water using standard printer paper: fold a sheet into a box, put it on a stand over a bunsen burner, fill it with water, turn up the bunsen burner. Not only does it not burn but it retains more of its structural integrity.

With direct flame on it? I guess it was removing water molecules slower than it was absorbing water. As long as it was saturated it would be fine. Great experiment.

the mechanism of it is not that paper is saturated with water, but that while there is water in the container, paper doesn't get hotter than 100C and a bit, not enough to ignite.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#196

Post by lukan »

pests wrote: post #143
morkalork wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or your poor map reading skills are how you got lost in the first place

Even if you had a map, a compass, knew where you are on the map, and had a target destination on the map… it would still be hard to navigate, again a skill all by itself.

Someone who doesn't know how a map works, likely won't have much other survival skill giving him benefit from the map cooking method.

Personally, destroying my only map (or risking it) would be the last desperate method that I would consider trying.

Survival tip number one is btw not bother much with foraging or trying to boil potential poisonous plants to mess up your stomach, but find the best direction and focus on walking, if no help will come.

(One can go without food for days, but not without water)

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#197

Post by account42 »

pests wrote: post #129
BurningFrog wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a classic survival tip when lost in the wild: Fold your map into a box and cook whatever food-like things you've found before eating. Why you're lost when you have a map is a different question.

Just because you have a map doesn’t mean you know where you are in said map. Reading the landscape and elevation changes around you and matching that to a map is a skill into itself. Even harder without a compass.

Wait you mean there isn't an arrow on the map that automatically shows your position and heading?

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#198

Post by sfn42 »

mr_toad wrote: post #173
sfn42 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common mistake. Just this weekend I followed a recipe from a well known cooking website for beef stroganoff that said to brown the beef in batches together with batches of onion. That's not a good idea, the onion will release liquid which prevents the beef from browning and once that cooks off the heat required to brown the meat will burn the onion. So I cooked the beef and onion separately instead. The onion…

> I explained that it doesn't matter, the water won't get any hotter. I'll just waste electricity making steam. He didn't believe me I think we had the same roommate. I used to call him Captain Humidity because he filled the kitchen with steam.

That's hilarious. Reminds me of another person in my life who just burns everything. I keep telling her to calm down with the heat and she keeps putting her induction top on boost then just going to do something else while things burn. She goes through teflon(or whatever they replaced it with) frying pans on a monthly basis, she has like 4 of them right now and they're all flaking off because she overheats them. Like properly destroyed. All her plastic utensils are messed up, molten and broken because she just leaves them on these 1000 degree frying pans.

I tried buying a carbon steel pan for her thinking it can take the heat but after a month it was rusty and caked with carbonized food that she never took the time to scrub off. In hindsight a stainless steel pan would probably have been better but I'm sure she would have found a way to destroy that too.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#199

Post by zelos »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #149
sfn42 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common mistake. Just this weekend I followed a recipe from a well known cooking website for beef stroganoff that said to brown the beef in batches together with batches of onion. That's not a good idea, the onion will release liquid which prevents the beef from browning and once that cooks off the heat required to brown the meat will burn the onion. So I cooked the beef and onion separately instead. The onion…

I watched a cook (America’s Test Kitchen?) where they explored different ways of thinking of heat management in pasta. The unbelievable one that worked: boil water, add pasta, turn off heat. The water retains the heat and will still penetrate the pasta. I have never actually tried it myself, but it makes sense.

I think about these things every time I cook, but it never occurred to me to just try it. I always assumed that the "reaction rate doubles for 10C change" rule of thumb meant it would take much longer, plus presumably cooking is endothermic.

Re: Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore

#200

Post by kazinator »

sfn42 wrote: post #198
mr_toad wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I explained that it doesn't matter, the water won't get any hotter. I'll just waste electricity making steam. He didn't believe me I think we had the same roommate. I used to call him Captain Humidity because he filled the kitchen with steam.

That's hilarious. Reminds me of another person in my life who just burns everything. I keep telling her to calm down with the heat and she keeps putting her induction top on boost then just going to do something else while things burn. She goes through teflon(or whatever they replaced it with) frying pans on a monthly basis, she has like 4 of them right now and they're all flaking off because she overheats them. Like…

Shower cartridges can be adjusted to trim back the maximum hot setting. Maybe stoves should have that feature.
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