Como siempre, interesantísimo artículo de mi colega Judith Weingarten "
How to Feed a Pregnant Neanderthal", que plantea una nueva forma de explicar la "súbita" desaparición de nuestros primos Homo, los Neanderthales. En resumen, aunque recomiendo leer el artículo, necesitaban más ingesta de calorías, por
su complexión más robusta y metabolismo. El embarazo acrecentaba significativamente este hecho. Como cazadores y recolectores, su dieta se basaba más en proteínas que no en aquellos nutrientes especialmente necesarios durante la gestación (vitaminas A, C y E), con loo que la tasa de abortos debía ser muy significativa... tanto, como para no poder competir en tasa de natalidad con los Homo Sapiens...
Extracto del artículo "How to Feed a Pregnant Neanderthal"
For a quarter of a million years,
Neanderthals -- men and women -- were highly effective hunters.
Throughout this enormous period of time, the next meal depended on
killing large to medium-sized land animals (red deer, ibex, roe deer,
wild boar, tahr, and chamois, together with larger game such as bison,
horse, rhino, and elephant). Neanderthals probably enjoyed adequate
calorie and protein intake. Their highly carnivorous diet, however,
lacked adequate intake of micronutrients such as vitamins A, C, and E,
which means that many Neanderthal women probably had high incidences of
abortions, miscarriages, and stillbirths resulting in high
fetal-to-infant mortality.
This means that no matter what land
mammals they would have hunted, Neanderthals would still have not been
able to get the micronutrients to stay alive, especially with the
metabolic needs of a pregnant Neanderthal.
This was clearly not a winning strategy,
but Neanderthals weren't stupid: we have plenty of archaeological
indications that they also routinely consumed other kinds of foods
(plants, shellfish, and even sea mammals** -- all of which are rich in
various essential nutrients not found in terrestrial mammals) when these
were available. Given the cold environments of Pleistocene Europe
before ca. 40,000-30,000 BP, the Neanderthals were probably doing the
best they could. And that was good enough as long as the competition
consisted of non-human predators such as wolves, lions, and hyenas.
Seguir leyendo el artículo "How to Feed a Pregnant Neanderthal"
Que conste que suenan también otras teorías que vendrían a explicar en todo o en parte
la desaparición de los Neanderthales...
¿Quieres saber más sobre Historia Clásica y Antigua?
Puedes subscribirte al feed RSS de
www.historiaclasica.com o bien
seguirme por Twitter
