Study: Neanderthals Cooked and Ate Their Veggies

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Tourists visiting the Museum for Prehistory in Eyzies-de-Tayac look at a Neanderthal man

Patrick Bernard / AFP / Getty Images

Unlike you when you were a kid (and, okay, now), Neanderthals ate their vegetables, according to a recent study.

The popular perception of a Neanderthal is one of a meat-eating brute. But a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that they may have been more sophisticated than we thought.

(See how Neanderthal DNA lives on in humans.)

Though previous studies found no traces of vegetables in Neanderthal bones, these researchers found fossilized grains of vegetable material in their teeth. Some of the grains appear to have been cooked.

(See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2010.)

Neanderthals: they’re just like us. But no word if Neanderthal children refused to eat their veggies. (via BBC)