This pairs nicely with the recent publications around Neanderthal cognitive abilities and how there likely similar to ours (<a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/04/neanderthal-brains-measure-up-to-ours-literally/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/04/neanderthal-brains-m...</a>).
Fascinating. Considering the industrial scale fat production that the neanderthals managed to operate according to this article, it makes me wonder even more whether we still understand why exactly they went extinct in 80 thousand years later.
The answer that seems to be emerging from several different lines of research is that a) they always had fairly low fertility and b) they didn't really go extinct as such, they just intermixed with Homo Sapiens Sapiens and because the later had much higher fertility, Neanderthal genes got diluted down to the present ~2% in the Eurasian population.
Sounds plausible indeed. Anyways, neanderthals operating a large scale fat production 125 thousand years ago could be a good plot for another hollywood movie scenario. Any takers?
I thought even after the merge the Neanderthal genes continued to get rarer, indicating natural selection against them
If it's 2% now after 2000-3000 generations, it must have stabilized because any number <.995 is basically zero when raised to the 2000th power. The neanderthal genes would have to be 1-10^-5 as fit as a the sapiens genes, which is basically noise.
I thought it was mostly because our ancestors murdered them?
What is the modern version of this process/product?
The article mentions "rendering fat (from bones)" many times, but doesn't say how neanderthals actually did it? My best guess is they broke the bones into many little pieces, threw them in a fire, and waited for the fire to extinguish and cool, thus producing hardened (rendered) fat.<p>Feels like the most interesting part of the article was omitted!
Do we know how many people were in the community? Maybe I missed it in the article? 2000 people worth it food a day is hard to put into perspective otherwise. Though it's all very impressive regardless
Based on 20g rdv, they could be estimating ~40kg of rendered fat for 2000 servings. I can't tell from the wording whether they don't know the population and are implying that's a possible maximum or are just trying to relay the observed production capacity.<p>Look into pre-Colombian grease trails, which we have much better logistical records for.
Here's something random about "Neanderthal".<p>The word comes from the Neander Valley (Neander-thal) where their fossils were originally discovered. It was named after Joachim Neander, a 17th-century German pastor. Neander is a latinization of his family name Neumann, meaning "new man".<p>So not only did we discover a new type of man in a valley named new man, but the computers that are used for artificial intelligence (a future type of new man) all use the von Neumann architecture.<p>I found that amusing.<p>(Other random detail: The word "dollar" is derived from "thal". The Holy Roman Empire first minted standardized 1 ounce coins made out of silver from mines in Joachimsthal ("Joachim's Valley") and so were called Joachimsthalers. That got shortened to "thaler", then through Low German "daler" then Dutch to English.)
<p><pre><code> > The word "dollar" is derived from "thal".
</code></pre>
you are my hero; and this is why i love hn, cause this was something in the back of my mind that i wanted to find out about, and what do you know, a fellow hn'er just wrote it in a random comment. thanks!!
If you have a substack, I would subscribe to it
As they say, history rhymes
Wait till you find out we live in a Von Neumann Universe
Planning ahead, bulk processing, storing for later. Sounds less like primitive survival and more like logistics. Every time we dig deeper the gap between them and us gets smaller.
Primitive survival in places with winter requires storing rations for the winter months. Dried meat, fruit, seeds, and rendered fat are what it takes to survive winter.
And that's how Toyota eventually got to lean manufacturing, impressive!
There is evidence for neanderthals making gum/glue from birch bark. It's useful for hating stone onto wood for tool making.<p>I wonder if this bone grease was an edible product or something else. Oils have many uses.
> the tip of the proverbial ice-berg of Neanderthal impact on herbivore populations, especially on slowly-reproducing taxa, could have been substantial during the Last Interglacial.’<p>translation: the Neanderthals probably completely wiped out a ton of the species of big animals that once existed in these regions.<p>Homo sapiens isn’t the only hominid to do that…
Yeah like the rhinos and elephants that I didn't know you used to get in that area. Maybe they were too efficient and that's what limited their proliferation when they hit resource limits?
Neanderthals were homo sapiens.
Reminds me of the Barbegal mills, built in ancient Rome. The site produced 4.5 tons of flour per day, according to wikipedia. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbegal_aqueduct_and_mills" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbegal_aqueduct_and_mills</a>
university of leiden is a great institution and i am blessed for having studied there despite dropping out!
Pretty clever solution to rabbit starvation.
Question: why do we know this was about food? Bones are boiled for other reasons. Boiling down bones is how you make basic glue. Could this have been something more industrial, the creation of a useful ingredient for weapon making?
I like the explanation of Neil Tyson on Neanderthal's research.
Maybe when megafauna disappeared, so too the Neanderthals because their survival strategy was too dependent on them.
I am fat so?
That also must mean that Neanderthals must have been very clever, early on. We already knew they were clever, but 125.000 years ago is really pushing that further. Now the main question is still why and how they went extinct. We have some pieces of the puzzles (mitochondrial DNA found in human mitochondrial DNA) but not a complete picture yet (or, somewhat more complete; we can obviously never reconstruct all pieces of the puzzle).
Most likely scenario is a more aggressive, bloodthirsty, violent species of comparable intelligence came along ...
Perhaps they were very smart, but also they were all autistic[1], so they had poor social skills and had a hard time coordinating large groups against encroaching H. Sapiens Sapiens tribes.<p>[1] <a href="https://communities.springernature.com/posts/neanderthal-dna-implicated-in-autism-susceptibility" rel="nofollow">https://communities.springernature.com/posts/neanderthal-dna...</a>
Some would argue they still do. ;)
“Be he alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”
I read this as 'RAT factories' - like Neanderthal decided to breed thousands of rats presumably for food. Assuming rats were meaty and not taboo then, as they are now.
Your comment reminded me of the Great Hanoi Rat Massacre (I won't spoil the punchline):<p><a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hanoi-rat-massacre-1902" rel="nofollow">https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hanoi-rat-massacre-190...</a>
They’re still meaty and they aren’t taboo everywhere!<p>Whenever I go to the family farm I check to see if there are any fat juicy grilled rats at the local market. Alas, I’m still too squeamish to eat them, but I’m working up to it!
Same, and I also read Netherlands instead of Neanderthals.
Yeah me to!<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Rat%2C_IJlst" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Rat%2C_IJlst</a><p>>De Rat (English: The Rat) is a smock mill in IJlst, Friesland, Netherlands, which was originally built in the seventeenth century at Zaanstreek, North Holland. In 1828 it was moved to IJlst, where it worked using wind power until 1920 and then by electric motor until 1950. The mill was bought by the town of IJlst in 1956 and restored in the mid-1960s. Further restoration in the mid-1970s returned the mill to full working order. De Rat is working for trade and is used as a training mill. The mill is listed as a Rijksmonument (No. 39880).[1]
I keep reading <i>Neanderthal rat factories</i> too! HP Lovecraft would be pleased with us.
[flagged]
If I enable reader mode on this article on my iPhone, I get an AI summary instead of the article text. I’d it the sure doing that or my phone? I hate it either way as there’s no way to read the article in reader mode
For some reason, Safari (on Mac) is only pulling two paragraphs from the source. it isn't AI generated but the parsing routine seems to break on this page. I don't see any particular properties that make these paragraphs stand out from the others.<p><p><span><span><span><span><span>The Neumark-Nord discoveries are continuing to reshape our view of Neanderthal adaptability and survival strategies. They show that Neanderthals could plan ahead, process food efficiently and make sophisticated use of their environment.</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span>The authors emphasise the sheer quantity of herbivores that Neanderthals must have routinely been ‘harvesting’ in this warm-temperate phase: beyond the remains of minimally 172 large mammals processed at that small site alone within a very short period, hundreds of herbivores, including straight-tusked elephants, were butchered around the Neumark-Nord 1 lake in the early Last Interglacial, within the excavated areas only. Other exposures in the wider area around Neumark-Nord have yielded more coarse-grained evidence of regular exploitation of the same range of prey animals, at sites such as Rabutz, Gröbern and <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2309427120">Taubach</a>. The last site contained cut-marked remains of 76 rhinos and 40 straight-tusked elephants. Roebroeks: ‘Safely assuming that with these sites we are only looking at the tip of the proverbial ice-berg of Neanderthal impact on herbivore populations, especially on slowly-reproducing taxa, could have been substantial during the Last Interglacial.’</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
I assume you're seeing the text starting with "The authors emphasise the sheer quantity of herbivores"? I see that too in reader mode, both on my iPhone and Mac.<p>The text is in the article, second paragraph under "survival strategies". I don't see any obvious reason in the HTML why reader mode is skipping everything else.
Firefox reader view on PC shows the exact same text as is in the article
try this maybe?<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adv1257" rel="nofollow">https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adv1257</a><p><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.adv1257" rel="nofollow">https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.adv1257</a> [PDF]