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PNAS: Cooked or crocked?

Posted on 31 May 2011

Palaeo researcher challenges interpretation of Neanderthal Starch

 and Prof. Les Copeland (University of Sydney) have challenged evidence of Neanderthal's cooking and processing carbohydrates publihsed by Henry et al., Microfossils in calculus demonstrate consumption of plants and cooked foods in Neanderthal diets, arguing that a more parsimonious explanation is diagenesis.  "The recovery of starch granules from Neanderthal tooth calculus is very exciting.", said said Prof Collins, "But I think that an understanding of starch diagenesis over these times scales is essential to ground truth this field".

Read Collins and Copeland's critique Ancient starch: Cooked or just old? and the response by Henry et al.,  Spontaneous gelatinization not supported by evidence.