Cavemen Ground Flour, Prepped Veggies
There are still (lay) people out there who think that cavemen were idiotic brutes who spoke in grunts and only survived through hunting. This should be enough evidence to demonstrate that people 30,000 years ago had similar capabilities to modern humans.
The way I see it is that Homo Sapiens first came across Neanderthals when they entered the Middle East some 50,000 years ago. A low degree of admixture might already have taken place there, although it would have been minimal (1-2%). The slightly hybridised Homo Sapiens then penetrated Europe and Central Asia 40,000 years ago, where they further interbred with Neanderthals. The new hybrids had inherited perhaps up to 10% of Neanderthalian DNA (later diluted by Near Eastern farmers), and became a new human race known as Cro-Magnons.
Neanderthals had a more developed visual cortex than Homo Sapiens, but Homo Sapiens had a bigger frontal cortex. Hybrids who inherited from both (dolichocephalic with high foreheads) would be uniquely gifted. It is around this time that the world's greatest cave paintings appear, in places like Lascaux. The world's oldest musical instruments as well as the world's oldest pottery, were found in central Europe and date back from 25,000 to 35,000 years ago.
Now, it appears that Cro-Magnons could already make flour from wild cereals and make bread 30,000 years ago. They were not merely meat-eaters, but cooked vegetables and ate bread. In other words, they already had a quasi-modern diet by European standards, except for dairy products that would be introduced by the pastoral Indo-Europeans some 6,000 years ago.
* People started grinding flour at least 30,000 years ago, new evidence suggests.
* Prehistoric humans, and possibly Neanderthals, likely made bread and soup out of cattail flour.
* The findings suggest that starches and vegetables played an important role in Paleolithic diets.
There are still (lay) people out there who think that cavemen were idiotic brutes who spoke in grunts and only survived through hunting. This should be enough evidence to demonstrate that people 30,000 years ago had similar capabilities to modern humans.
The way I see it is that Homo Sapiens first came across Neanderthals when they entered the Middle East some 50,000 years ago. A low degree of admixture might already have taken place there, although it would have been minimal (1-2%). The slightly hybridised Homo Sapiens then penetrated Europe and Central Asia 40,000 years ago, where they further interbred with Neanderthals. The new hybrids had inherited perhaps up to 10% of Neanderthalian DNA (later diluted by Near Eastern farmers), and became a new human race known as Cro-Magnons.
Neanderthals had a more developed visual cortex than Homo Sapiens, but Homo Sapiens had a bigger frontal cortex. Hybrids who inherited from both (dolichocephalic with high foreheads) would be uniquely gifted. It is around this time that the world's greatest cave paintings appear, in places like Lascaux. The world's oldest musical instruments as well as the world's oldest pottery, were found in central Europe and date back from 25,000 to 35,000 years ago.
Now, it appears that Cro-Magnons could already make flour from wild cereals and make bread 30,000 years ago. They were not merely meat-eaters, but cooked vegetables and ate bread. In other words, they already had a quasi-modern diet by European standards, except for dairy products that would be introduced by the pastoral Indo-Europeans some 6,000 years ago.