Caveman menu: Woolly rhino in Belgium, mushrooms in Spain
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A new study says eating like a caveman depends on the location of the cave. In Belgium, a Neanderthal chowed down on sheep and woolly rhinos, yet in Spain they munched on mushrooms, pine nuts and moss in Spain.
Scientists got a sneak peek into the kitchen of three Neanderthals by scraping off the plaque stuck on their teeth and examining the DNA.
What they found smashes a common public misconception that the caveman diet was mostly meat. They also found hints that one sickly teen used primitive versions of penicillin and aspirin to help ease his pain.
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Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, said genetic tests showed which animals the 42,000-year-old Belgian Neanderthal ate: sheep and rhinos that roamed nearby.
The study is in Wednesday's journal Nature.