Feature Anthropology

A surprising food may have been a staple of the real Paleo diet: rotten meat

Historical accounts of Indigenous peoples’ diets have archaeologists rethinking ancient menus

illustration showing rotting mean, fruit, vegetables and an animal carcass

Rotten meat, along with a bounty of other understudied foods, may have been part of the diet of ancient hominids, anthropologists are discovering.

Emile Holmewood

By Bruce Bower

In a book about his travels in Africa published in 1907, British explorer Arnold Henry Savage Landor recounted witnessing an impromptu meal that his companions relished but that he found unimaginably revolting.