Ancient people ate giant snails 170,000 years ago - scientists

Scientists have discovered the earliest evidence of prehistoric humans cooking and eating giant slugs. A team of researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, found shell fragments of land snails from the Achatinidae family.

These creatures can grow up to 16 centimeters (6.3 in) in length. The discovery was made in a border cave located on a rock near South Africa, writes IFLScience.

It is noted that the site has been excavated several times since the 1930s, but it was during the work carried out between 2015 and 2019 that fragments of the shells of giant land snails were found.

Shell fragments, found in relative abundance, appeared in several layers of sediment, ranging in age from 70,000 to 170,000 years ago. They are also available in a variety of colors, "from glossy beige to brown and matte gray."

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According to the team, invertebrates such as snails make up more than 95 percent of Earth's biodiversity but are often overlooked in archaeological research. This is because they are considered unimportant to our understanding of the history of human behavior.

Other studies have shown that snail consumption appears in excavation sites dated to about 30,000 years ago in Europe and about 40,000 years ago in Africa.

To test their hypothesis that the snails were there because of human consumption, the team took the shells of modern land snails and broke them into fragments. The fragments were of various sizes and colors and experimentally heated for periods of time ranging from 5 minutes to 36 hours.

The shells also showed significant signs of heat-induced microcracks. The same patterns were present on prehistoric shells found at a site in South Africa.

The Israel Antiquities Authority recently announced that the world's oldest metal fishing hook had been found in Ashkelon. It was used to catch sharks.

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