14 DAY TRIAL // The fact that our ancestors were in the habit of snacking on each other every once in a while isn't exactly breaking-news-of-the-week material.
What's interesting is that, as it turns out, they loved and adored experimenting with different recipes and cooking with all sorts of spices, chili peppers included.
Sometimes they boiled their meat, other times they grilled it
To uncover the dietary habits of ancient cannibals, researchers at Ciudad University in Mexico and the Complutense University of Madrid studied several human bones dating back to 700 to 500 BC.
As detailed in a study in the journal Archaeometry, these bones were recovered from an archaeological site not far from Mexico City in recent years and show clear signs of cannibalistic practices.
Thus, the bones display cuts and were clearly exposed to high temperatures, which indicates cooking. They also show tinges of different colors that scientists say hint at the use of spices.
Having closely analyzed these bones, researchers found that some had been boiled and others had been grilled. These distinct cooking methods explains why the bones don't all look the same.
“In boiling, the bone salts tend to dissolve, promoting collagen surface migration. This is the way, then, to distinguish boiling from grilling,” the scientists write in their report, as cited by DM.
Yup, it would appear that our cannibalistic ancestors did not have a monotonous diet. Au contraire, they were aware of several ways to cook human flesh to make it savory and appealing.
They even added spices to their meals, researchers say
Tests carried out in laboratory conditions revealed that the red tinges on the millennia-old human bones unearthed near Mexico City were caused by meat juices and blood.
The shades of yellow and orange, however, were the result of the use of spices such as chili peppers, an orange-red condiment known as annatto, and even pumpkin seeds.
“These condiments contain high amounts of carotenoids [organic pigments in plants], which are well known as dying agents,” the specialists behind this study explain.
The use of spices to cook human flesh indicates that, to ancient cannibals, cooking other folks was not very different to cooking other less macabre dishes.