What Did Ancient Humans Actually Eat?

What Did Ancient Humans Diets Actually Look Like? Picture a caveman eating and you probably picture a slab of meat. The evidence says something stranger. DNA from Neanderthal tooth plaque, a 23,000-year-old camp with 140 kinds of plants, bread baked thousands of years before farming, a fish cooked 780,000 years ago, and a Neanderthal site built around rendering fat. This is what ancient humans actually ate, and what it cost them. RESEARCH & SOURCES Neanderthal diets from tooth plaque (El Sidrón and Spy) — Weyrich et al., Nature (2017): https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21674 Bread 14,400 years ago at Shubayqa 1, Jordan — Arranz-Otaegui et al., PNAS (2018): https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1801071115 Tooth decay in Moroccan hunter-gatherers at Taforalt — Humphrey et al., PNAS (2014): https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1318176111 Fish cooked 780,000 years ago at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov — Zohar et al., Nature Ecology & Evolution (2022): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01... Humans spend 4.7% of the day eating, against a predicted 48% — Organ et al., PNAS (2011): https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1107806108 Neanderthal bone-grease processing at Neumark-Nord — Kindler et al., Science Advances (2025): https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adv1257 Ohalo II, the 23,000-year-old camp: Snir et al., PLOS ONE (2015); Piperno et al., Nature (2004), on wild cereal starch on the grinding stone. Honeyguide birds and human calls: Spottiswoode, Begg & Begg, Science (2016); Spottiswoode & Wood, Science (2023); Wood et al. (2014) on Hadza honey-hunting. Honey in forager diets: Marlowe et al., Journal of Human Evolution (2014). Wheat, rice and maize as a share of global food calories: FAO data (FAOSTAT). This video is history, not dietary advice. #AncientHumans #StoneAge #Archaeology #Prehistory #HumanEvolution #Neanderthals #Anthropology #AncientHistory #FoodHistory #HunterGatherers #Paleolithic