27 October 2025

Humans were never hypercarnivores. Neanderthal consumption of maggots clouds the data.


Excerpts from an interesting paper in Science Advances.
Reconstructions of Eurasian Neanderthal diets based on stable nitrogen isotope ratios (δ15N) typically place hominins at the top of the food web, together with, or above, hypercarnivores, such as lions and wolves. We suggest that these high δ15N values may, in part, reflect the regular consumption of 15N-enriched fly larvae (maggots) occurring in stored animal foods. The ethnohistoric record contains countless examples of Indigenous peoples routinely consuming putrefied animal foods with maggots... We suggest that frequent consumption of animal foods laced with maggots should be considered as a contributor to the high δ15N values observed in Late Pleistocene hominins...

Indigenous peoples almost universally viewed thoroughly putrefied, maggot-infested animal foods as highly desirable fare, not starvation rations. Many such peoples routinely, often intentionally, allowed animal foods to decompose to the point where they were crawling with maggots, in some cases even beginning to liquify, and inevitably emitting a stench so overpowering that early European explorers, fur trappers, and missionaries were sickened by it. Yet such foods were viewed as “good to eat,” even a delicacy, and when asked how they could tolerate the nauseating stench, they simply responded, “we don’t eat the smell”. While our Western sensibilities might abhor the thought of maggot-infested foods, one even finds vestiges of larvae consumption in Europe with the delicacy of casu marzu, a traditional Sardinian cheese replete with the larvae of cheese flies (Piophila casei)...

Our principal goal in this study was to determine whether 15N enrichment occurred in maggots raised on putrid tissue and whether the degree of enrichment was of sufficient magnitude to account for, or at least contribute notably to, the unusually elevated δ15N values observed in Eurasian Late Pleistocene hominins...

Many nitrogen isotope studies place Late Pleistocene hominins alongside hypercarnivores, giving the misleading impression that both had broadly similar diets. They did not. Hominins are primates with largely vegetarian-derived digestive and metabolic systems, not specialized flesh eaters. While it is possible for humans to subsist on a very “carnivorous” diet, many traditional northern hunter-gatherers such as the Inuit subsisted mostly on animal foods, hominins simply cannot tolerate the high levels of protein consumption that large predators can. A modern human weighing ~80 kg, the estimated body weight for a robust cold-adapted Neanderthal male, cannot consume more than ~300 g of protein per day (<4 g/kg of body weight) without serious health consequences. At sustained intakes above that level for as little as 1 to 2 weeks, the individual becomes vulnerable to a debilitating and potentially lethal condition known to early explorers as “rabbit starvation”...

In modern medical terms, the consumption of such high levels of protein exceeds the capacity of the liver to up-regulate enzymes involved in the synthesis of urea, with the result that the liver can no longer effectively deaminize the amino acids, leading, in turn, to a buildup of ammonia and excess amino acids (hyperaminoacidemia) in the blood. In notable contrast, a modern African lion can readily subsist on protein intakes that would probably prove lethal to a human in a matter of a few weeks. Thus, northern hunter-gatherers were carnivorous only in the sense that they relied heavily on animal foods, but most of what they ate was fat, not muscle...

To stay below the critical protein threshold, hunters deliberately targeted the fattest prey available at a given time of year and harvested mostly the “choice parts” of their kills, i.e., the brain, tongue, briskets, ribs, adipose tissue, fatty organs and entrails, marrow, often the carbohydrate-rich chyme and partly digested stomach contents, and, time and fuel permitting, also the grease in the cancellous tissue of the bones...

...meat and fish surpluses were procured in the summer and fall; processed by drying, salting, or freezing; and cached for later use…. The preparation of food surpluses was an intrinsic part of the seasonal round.” Such reserves were often repeatedly tapped over periods of weeks or months, many over multiple seasons, and some for a full year or more. Foods were often already maggot infested before they were placed in caches (i.e., in summer and autumn), and, by the time that the contents were lastly exhausted (commonly in winter and/or spring), they were almost invariably in an advanced state of putrefaction and filled with both living and dead maggots...
I think this is absolutely fascinating, so I've excerpted way too much, but I encourage interested readers to go to the primary source for more data and discussion.  The general public will focus way too much on the "ick" factor of eating maggots, but there are serious matters to consider here re components of a healthy diet, limitations of protein intake, and the consumption of fat.  In particular, this report gives me new insight into the well-known use of "buffalo jumps" to slaughter entire herds of large animals, such as at the Itasca (Minnesota) Bison Kill site and the more famous Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Canada.  I had always viewed such hunting techniques as extravagantly wasteful, but now I understand that humans could return to the kill site months later to harvest meat, fat, and maggot.

You learn something every day.

18 comments:

  1. They may say "we don't eat the smell," but smell is a very large factor in taste, so they actually do. I haven't looked at the source paper yet, but wonder if it talks at all about the place of larvae and grubs in diets (both then and now) that are, for example, dug up or otherwise harvested and eaten fresh.
    Sandra

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    1. I have heard the argument about smell being a large factor in taste, then I think of durian, stinky tofu, Surströmming, and all the other delights that we humans eat. There is a famous scene in Shogun in which a Japanese servant discards the fowl that the Europeans are "ripening" even though the servant knows that it will cause their execution, and this suggests that the smell factor is cultural. I am compelled to conclude the smell factor is overstated.

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    2. To our scavenging ancestors, the smell of rotting flesh must have been appetizing. Or so I imagine.

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    3. I was thinking more of the fact that taste buds don't actually give us much of what we "taste." Think of how little you can taste when you have a cold, or if you lost taste due to covid.
      Sandra

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  2. Lutefisk? anchovies? cheeses? casu martzu? we still eat 'spoilt' foods, maybe not as strong smelling as they were used to.

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  3. Ladies and gentlemen I give you......The stinky Scandinavian fish surströmming, a Swedish dish of fermented Baltic Sea herring known for its powerful, pungent smell. The strong odor comes from the lactic acid fermentation process that happens in the can, which can cause the cans to bulge. Despite its smell, it is considered a delicacy in Sweden and is often eaten with accompaniments like potatoes, sour cream, and flatbread.

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    1. https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2012/01/surstromming.html

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  4. I'm always amazed by how much we have to learn about ourselves from our ancestors and science.

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  5. Interesting post!

    Macro-nutrient breakdown, maggots, Google AI:

    "Protein: Typically 40–64% crude protein, with some studies showing values as high as 55–56.5%. They contain essential amino acids, sometimes in higher amounts than traditional sources like soybean meal.
    Fat: Rich in fat, with analyses showing around 27.65% or 13.07% ether extract. Key fatty acids include palmitic, oleic, and palmitoleic acid.
    Carbohydrates: Contain about 12.03% carbohydrates.
    Fiber: Include crude fiber, with one study showing 3.73% and another 6.77%.
    Ash: The ash content, which indicates the mineral content, is around 8.33% or 10.93%."

    Seems implied in the material (unless stated and I missed it) that maggots were critically useful in transforming high protein muscle tissue into a more nutritionally balanced food. Especially transforming protein into fat. Regardless of flavor, making human life possible in regions of the planet where there was an abundance of game animals and not much else. Fascinating.

    Since our ancestors are thought to have been scavengers, before hunter-gatherers, I take it our diet contained maggots for millions of years. I've looked at flies in various ways, but never with gratitude. A whole nother level.



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    1. It's life's illusions I recall
      I really don't know flies
      I really don't know flies at all

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  6. So THAT'S what's missing from my diet !

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  7. This brings to mind the habit of some Northern Canadian Indigenous peoples of eating the larvae of botflies they find burrowed beneath the hide of caribou they are harvesting. They look like maggots on steroids.

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    1. Wow...yikes...: https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/8c74f51d-43aa-4c1b-81fe-5157388c0698/resource/303e0f1d-ae50-459e-87d2-31dd2c0af5a9/download/factsheet-flylarvaebotswarbles-sep-2017.pdf

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  8. I think a distinction might be made between "spoiled, rotten, decaying" vs "putrid/fecal/etc". I have seen experienced "battle-hardened" nurses in the Parkland emergency room emerge vomiting from a closed examination room in the ER that had a patient whose backside was a confluent decubitus ulcer covered with near-neon-green Pseudomonas aeruginosa. These were nurses that would have gone elbow-deep into a bloody trauma patient or handled a fecally-incontinent street person without a thought, but who reflexly vomited from that Pseudomonas smell.

    There are some odors that are truly emetogenic (vomit-inducing) that trigger reflexes from deep in the brainstem, bypassing the cortex, and designed to prevent contact with dangerous items.

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    1. Well said. Respect.

      I asked AI, "Is there meat so rotten even vultures won't touch it?"

      Yes, meat can become so rotten that even vultures will avoid it, though vultures are highly adapted to eating carrion and can tolerate a great deal of decay. They prefer meat that is "freshly dead," and will often leave a carcass after a few days as it becomes too putrid, although they have been known to eat meat up to four days old.

      Vultures have a limit: While their digestive systems can handle disease-causing bacteria and toxins, there is a point at which the decomposition makes the meat undesirable.

      Vultures prefer fresher carrion: They are often the first to find a carcass after the first day or two, when the odor is strong enough to be detected, but the meat is not yet fully putrid.

      Other animals might eat it: While vultures may pass on a carcass, other scavengers like raccoons, coyotes, or other animals might still consume it.

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    2. IIRC this depends a lot on the kind of vulture.

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  9. "I've had nothing but maggoty bread for three stinking days!"

    "Lucky you!"

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  10. Polyphemus moths don't eat as adults, so the larvae grow rich in fat. I wonder if this is also the case for bugs which do eat as adults. (Presumably the metamorphosis is fueled by stored fat even for those guys.)

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