Ancient garbage dumps full of escargot shells found along the Red Sea show that seafood was on the menu for people as they enter on perfidious migration from Africa to Arabia around 5,000 years ago .
On the Farasan Islands of the Red Sea , a prehistorical perdition blockage along ancient migratory path between Africa to Arabia , archeologist have discovered the bearing of large pits containing up to 15,000 shells of sea snails that found themselves in the area between 4,780 to 7,360 years ago . Reported in the journalQuaternary International , the evidence suggests that the shellfish sustained a universe of people trekking out of Africa to Eurasia around 5,000 class ago .
This was an extremely desiccated period of drought in the neighborhood when there would have been slim picking for the newcomers ' diet needs on landed estate . In the piss , however , an teemingness of seafood was able to provide much - needed sustentation for the weary traveller .
" Our data shows that at a time when many other resources on land were scarce , masses could rely on their topically useable mollusc , ” Dr Niklas Hausmann , lead author and Associate Researcher at the Department of Archaeology at the University of York in the UK , said in astatement .
“ former study have shown that masses of the southern Red Sea ate shellfish class - bout and over periods of yard of year . We now also eff that this imagination was not depleted by them , but shellfish continue to maintain a sizable universe , " add Hausmann .
By front at the form and sizing of the mollusk shell , the researchers were able to work out how much sift the hungry travelers were putting on the barbarian population of ocean snail . A large proportion of shells that do n’t come out to have turn over due date indicate the universe was struggling , but the shells found at the numerous pits in the Farasan Islands were shown to be bad and fully mold , bespeak they were plentiful at the fourth dimension and “ remained unaffected by human harvest air pressure . ”
“ Our report evoke that Red Sea shorelines had the resources necessary to ply a transit for prehistoric people , ” explained Hausmann .
“ The availability of food for thought resources play an significant role in understanding the feasibleness of past human migration – hunter - collector migrations would have require local nutrient sources and periods of aridness could , therefore , have restricted these apparent movement . ”
Prehistoric humans are often imagined to be carnivorous cavemen who ate a meaty diet of gigantic , saber - tooth tigers , and other prehistoric slightness , but seafood has actually long been afundamental origin of nutrition . There’salso substantial evidencethat Neandtherhals , our out hominin cousins , actively harvested seafood106,000 years ago .
