Imagine that you have an unhealthy interest in your neighbours’ lives. Unable to ask them directly, you rifle through their rubbish bins. You find the bones of cooked chickens and try and work out what else they eat.
This is a bit like how archaeologists study the diets of extinct humans such as the Neanderthals and early homo sapiens. This is about more than satisfying curiosity. Understanding our ancestors’ diets may reveal critical clues about their evolutionary success or failure.
