Escargot nay have been a diet staple for Paleolithic inhabitants of modern-day Spain.
New findings suggest those living in modern-day Spain ate snails 10,000 years earlier than their Mediterranean neighbors, PLOS reported.
Snail consumption was believed to have been widespread during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene, but researchers are still unsure of exactly when or how they were incorporated. The team found snail remains from 30,000 years ago in Cova de la Barriada, Spain.
In order to better understand snail consumption patterns across the years researchers investigated trends of land snail selection, consumption, and accumulation at the site and then determined how the shell had decayed and fossilized; they also looked at the snails' age of death.
"Using a new analytical protocol based on taphonomic, microX-Ray Diffractometer (DXR) and biometric analyses, we investigated the patterns of selection, consumption and accumulation of land snails at the site. The results display a strong mono-specific gathering of adult individuals, most of them older than 55 weeks," the researchers wrote in the study abstract.
The research team found groupings of complete shells from large land snails across three sites. The shells were close to prehistoric human-constructed structures that are believed to have been used to cook the ancient escargot. The researchers also observed stone tools that may have been used for cooking purposes.
The snails were most likely roasted alongside other animals in embers of pine and juniper at a temperature of 375 degrees Celsius.
The researchers believe the findings suggest previously unknown patterns of invertebrate use and consumption and could broaden our idea of the diet in the Upper Paleolithic in the Mediterranean basin.
In neighboring regions scientists believe snails were not eaten until about 10,000 years later, which means these newly-discovered snail shells are the oldest-known example of them being used as a food resource in Europe.
The study was published Aug. 20, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Javier Fernández-López de Pablo from Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social and colleagues.
