Neanderthals cooked veggies and used plants for medicine

Neanderthals were more sophisticated than we'd thought previously, with the first evidence that they cooked plants for food and used plants for medicine found by an international team of scientists, including Professor Les Copeland from the University of Sydney's Faculty of Agriculture and Environment. The research, published in the prestigious journal Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature , provides the first molecular evidence from Neanderthal remains for inhalation of wood-fire smoke and oil shale, and ingestion of a range of cooked plant foods. The paper also includes the first evidence for the use of medicinal plants by a Neanderthal individual. Neanderthals are hominids in the same genus as modern humans - Homo - who became extinct between 30,000 and 24,000 years ago. Using remains from five Neanderthals from the El Sidrón site in northern Spain, the team analysed material trapped in dental calculus, finding evidence for both food plants and medicinal plants on the Neanderthal teeth. "Our results are really surprising, as Neanderthals had been thought to be predominantly meat-eaters. Just over the past several years there has been evidence of more plants in Neanderthal diets.