Study Reveals Ancient Humans Cooked And Ate Giant Snails 170,000 Years Ago

Researchers discovered broken shell pieces in a South African cave that shows evidence of humans eating snails, according to a new paper published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

An analysis of the shell fragments excavated at South Africa’s Border Cave showed signs that the shells had been heated, possibly in cooking, leading researchers to conclude that ancient humans had been roasting and eating snails longer ago than previously thought.

Earlier research showed evidence that humans were eating snails some 49,000  years ago in Africa and 36,000 years ago in Europe.

This new research though suggests that humans could have begun dining on the mollusks 70,000 to 170,000 years ago.

“The easy-to-eat, fatty protein of snails would have been an important food for the elderly and small children, who are less able to chew hard foods,” study author Marine Wojcieszak of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels told Science News.

Before this discovery, experts used to think that near the end of the last Ice Age, humans were only using land snails in their diet.

But the new evidence suggests that our ancestors understood the nutritional value of snails far before the Ice Age and in fact had incorporated these land snails in their diets long ago.

South Africa’s Border Cave, a rock shelter on a cliff roughly 2,000 feet above sea level, has provided researchers with a wealth of knowledge about how ancient humans lived. Previous excavations have uncovered evidence of humans eating mussels, limpets, and other marine mollusks as far back as 164,000 years ago.

Dating back to more than 200,000 years ago, the cave shows evidence of how humans cooked starch plant diets and hunted large and small animals, and ate a variety of fruits and vegetables.

The evidence also shows how it is the site of the oldest known grass bedding. 

With these new discoveries, researchers started investigating and discovered a litany of shell fragments ranging in color from beige to brown and gray.

This range of colors showed that the shells may have been cooked as the shell changes color under heat.

Researchers wanted to confirm this theory and so they warmed pieces of modern giant land snail shells to temperatures ranging from 392 degrees Fahrenheit to 1,022 degrees Fahrenheit for varying lengths of time, from anywhere between five minutes to 36 hours.

In their observation, they saw the shells’ color change and also noted weight loss, microscopic cracks, and changes to the shells’ chemical balance.

Though, there is also a possiblity that the shells were heated accidently, but another piece of evidence that included charred seeds and animal bones nearby suggested to researchers that these items were intentionally cooked, Wojcieszak explained to New Scientist.

Experts say that invertebrates like snails make up 95 percent of our planet's biodiversity but still, they are overlooked in archaeological research for multiple reasons.

Most importantly, invertebrates are not given importance due to ancient humans' behavior but also because finding evidence of invertebrates centuries ago is not an easy task. Though, snails are an exception to this latter point, however, due to their shells.

“Terrestrial mollusks are an excellent source of nutrients,” the authors wrote. “They are easy and not dangerous to collect, they can be stored for some time before being consumed, they are simple to prepare and to digest as long as one has a basic mastery of fire.”

Even though invertebrates, especially snails have been ignored when it comes to studying ancient humans but this discovery has proven to be crucial in understanding how humans used to sustain their nutritional values in the past.

In fact, not only this but it also gives an insight into how eating snails used to influence social dynamics in history as evidence of ancient humans eating and sharing snails suggests that “cooperative social behavior was in place from the dawn of our species,” Wojcieszak said.