Vegano Neandertales? La verdad acerca de la dieta de los Neandertales
Una representación típica de los neandertales los imagina matando al mamut lanudo. Sin embargo, una placa dental cuenta una historia diferente sobre la dieta neandertal.
Milos Pokimica
Escrito por: Milos Pokimica
Revisado Médicamente Por: Dr. Xiùying Wáng, M.D.
Actualizado el 9 de junio de 2023La representación estereotipada de los neandertales los muestra matando al mamut lanudo. Existen pruebas arqueológicas que respaldan la tesis de que la dieta de los neandertales era carnívora incluso al mismo nivel que la de los osos polares, lo que incluía comidas ricas en grandes herbívoros como el mamut lanudo, el reno y el rinoceronte lanudo.
Sin embargo, los dientes neandertales cuentan una historia diferente. La placa dental sirve para analizar los almidones y proteínas que se conservaban en ella. Cuando se investigan, los patrones de desgaste de sus dientes sugieren una dieta variada. La dieta también variaba en función de la ubicación, con importantes diferencias regionales. En algunas zonas, los estudios indican que los neandertales consumían sobre todo plantas, posiblemente incluso medicinales.
El importante descubrimiento se produjo cuando los científicos analizaron los restos de neandertales de El Sidrón (España). Los neandertales de El Sidrón mostraban cero signos de consumo de carne. No una pequeña cantidad, sino un cero absoluto. En lugar de carne, obtenían calorías de alimentos vegetales recogidos en el bosque. La placa dental estaba llena de restos de diferentes tipos de frutos secos, setas y musgo. Neandertales veganos, ¿cómo podría encajar eso en la típica imagen aceptada? ¿Qué hay de las proteínas y la b12?
Dental plaque is a very useful tool because it can preserve genetic material from the food that animals eat for analysis. Laura Weyrich at the University of Adelaide and a team of researchers were able to produce an amazingly accurate look at what plant and animal species Neanderthals had been eating. They analyzed three samples. Two obtained fossils were from El Sidrón Cave in Spain, including the potential aspirin-popper, while one was from Spy Cave in Belgium (Cueva del Sidrón- Wikipedia). El análisis demostró una vez más la completa diversidad de alimentos en función de la ecología del hábitat local, en consonancia con la teoría del forrajeo óptimo (OFT).

Neanderthal diet didn’t exist in essence. Diet depended on where the Neanderthals in question lived. The Belgians, for example, followed the meat-heavy pattern because they had to. Genetic material from wild sheep, woolly rhinoceros, and some mushrooms was discovered in dental plaque with also some bones in the cave from horses, mammoths, reindeer, and rhinoceros. Bones tell the identical story as the dental plaque that these groups were hunters. In the Belgian habitat, they did not forage for plant foods because there wasn’t any to be found. They had to adapt to survive the cold barren climate by hunting. They probably didn’t like it too much either.
Los neandertales españoles parecían tener una vida más cómoda. Eran neandertales hippies, vegetarianos y relajados. La verdad sobre la dieta real de los neandertales es que comían sobre todo setas, piñones, musgo y otros tipos de alimentos que obtendríamos forrajeando en un bosque. Por lo tanto, los neandertales del norte eran cazadores y los del sur, recolectores.
¿Qué nos dicen estas pruebas? Uno de los neandertales de España parecía tener un absceso dental y una infección estomacal y se automedicaba con álamo (Populus alba), un analgésico natural que contiene ácido salicílico, el mismo principio activo de la aspirina. El individuo también había consumido el moho Penicillium, productor de antibióticos. Es decir, decenas de miles de años antes de que el Dr. Alexander Fleming utilizara una cepa de Penicillium para desarrollar el primer antibiótico, revolucionando la medicina moderna. Si queremos hablar de los fundadores de la medicina, ¿qué tal los antibióticos y las aspirinas de los neandertales?

One other thing was interesting. Weyrich’s team also managed to completely sequence one particular microbe called Methanobrevibacter oralis that lacks genes for resisting antiseptics and digesting maltose. In time this microbe has adapted to hygiene and changed human diets. Weyrich’s team calculated that the Neanderthal strain split apart from those found in modern humans between 112,000 and 143,000 years ago which suggests that the two groups were trading Methanobrevibacter likely when they had sex.
¿Por qué los grupos de neandertales que viven en el sur son veganos? Probablemente porque pueden. Había un entorno mucho más amigable y un clima más suave con más fuentes de alimentos. Los neandertales veganos no son un grupo moral de individuos que decidieron ser vegetales como una elección personal de identidad. Es una elección de supervivencia. Si tuviéramos algo que pudiéramos comer creciendo junto a nuestra cueva, ¿iríamos de caza? Sólo aplicando las estrategias óptimas de forrajeo, tenemos la respuesta. Los neandertales eran anatómicamente más veganos que carnívoros, pero en las zonas septentrionales durante la Edad de Hielo, el clima era duro y tuvieron que adaptarse y eso les llevó algún tiempo. Tanto los neandertales como los humanos modernos evolucionaron a partir del Homo erectus. El Homo erectus era una especie herbívora. Las primeras oleadas migratorias conocidas de H. Erectus hacia Eurasia datan de hace 1,81 millones de años. La investigación genética del reloj molecular había situado el tiempo de divergencia de los linajes neandertal y humano moderno entre 800.000 y 400.000 años atrás. Por este motivo, la mayoría de los estudiosos creen que los neandertales descienden, vía Homo heidelbergensis. La población de Homo erectus que permaneció en África habría evolucionado, a través del Homo rhodesiensis intermedio, hacia los humanos anatómicamente modernos hace 300.000 años o antes.
Los neandertales evolucionaron en Europa y los humanos lo hicieron en África y existen algunas pequeñas diferencias fisiológicas. Los Homo sapiens tienen torsos acampanados más pequeños y pelvis más estrechas. Los neandertales tenían torsos acampanados y pelvis más anchas. La explicación convencional ha sido que los neandertales necesitaban más oxígeno debido al clima más frío, por lo que sus cuerpos crecieron para albergar un sistema respiratorio más grande. Pero esto es erróneo. Viviendo en el frío clima de Eurasia hace entre 300.000 y 30.000 años, los neandertales se asentaron en lugares como los Urales polares y el sur de Siberia. En medio de un invierno en la tundra, sin fuentes de alimentos vegetales, la carne animal hecha de grasa y proteínas seguía siendo la única fuente de energía. Aunque la grasa es más fácil de digerir, escasea en condiciones de frío. Los animales de presa quemaban sus reservas de grasa durante el invierno y adelgazaban mucho. Hay que llegar a la conclusión de que los neandertales debían de comer mucha proteína animal.
Las proteínas plantean enormes exigencias on the kidneys and the liver to remove some of the toxic byproducts produced by burning it for energy. Humans have a protein ceiling of between 35 and 50 percent of calories in our diet. Eating much more than that can be dangerous. Neanderthals’ bodies found a way to utilize more protein by enlarging the liver and kidneys. Chests and pelvises widened also to accommodate these beefed-up organs giving them distinct look. If we look today at Inuit peoples, their diet subsists at times on all meat and nothing else and they do have larger livers and kidneys and longer ribs than average Europeans. To survive the fat famine, Neanderthals undoubtedly also specialized in hunting massive animals like mammoths. They retain fat longer in poor conditions and require less energy and speed to kill than smaller swifter prey. Mammoths are too big to escape or evade, and we only have to kill one to feast for months because meat does not spoil in constant subzero temperatures. But as these mega-beasts vanished, Neanderthals likely struggled to chase down smaller, swifter prey. In the southern part like Spain, they went the old vegan way.
What does all of this tell us about us? We didn’t have over the millennia of living in the Ice Age northern climate to adapt to a diet rich in meat to some extent. We evolved in Africa from plan based vegan lineage of 60 million years. Modern humans first left Africa 100,000 years ago in a series of slow-paced migration waves and arrived in southern Europe around 80,000-90,000 years ago.
Por lo tanto, ¿cuál es la verdadera dieta paleo?
Referencias:
Pasajes seleccionados de un libro: Pokimica, Milos. Go Vegan? Examen de Ciencias de la Parte 1. Kindle ed., Amazon, 2018.
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Aprenda Sobre Nutricion
Milos Pokimica es doctor en medicina natural, nutricionista clínico, escritor sobre salud médica y nutrición y asesor en ciencias de la nutrición. Autor de la serie de libros Go Vegan? Revisión de la Ciencia, también dirige el sitio web sobre salud natural GoVeganWay.com.
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Milos Pokimica es doctor en medicina natural, nutricionista clínico, escritor sobre salud médica y nutrición y asesor en ciencias de la nutrición. Autor de la serie de libros Go Vegan? Revisión de la Ciencia, también dirige el sitio web sobre salud natural GoVeganWay.com.
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