Cavemen ate cooked beans

Science news:

Scientists have upgraded their opinion of Neanderthal cuisine after spotting traces of cooked food on the fossilised teeth of our long-extinct cousins.

The researchers found remnants of date palms, seeds and legumes – which include peas and beans – on the teeth of three Neanderthals uncovered in caves in Iraq and Belgium.

Among the scraps of food embedded in the plaque on the Neanderthals' teeth were particles of starch from barley and water lilies that showed tell-tale signs of having been cooked. ...

Piperno said the discoveries even raised the possibility that male and female Neanderthals had different roles in acquiring and preparing food. ...

"In early human groups, women typically collected plants and turned them into food while men hunted. To us, and it is just a suggestion, this brings up the possibility that there was some sexual division of labour in the Neanderthals and that is something most people did not think existed."

So I guess that somebody had a theory that the Neanderthals got wiped out because the men were not smart enough to have their women cook their vegetables for them. And now it has been debunked.