Editing Middle Paleolithic (section)

==Nutrition==
Although gathering and hunting comprised most of the food supply during the Middle Paleolithic, people began to supplement their diet with seafood and began smoking and drying meat to preserve and store it. For instance the Middle Stone Age inhabitants of the region now occupied by the [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]] hunted large {{convert|6|ft|m|adj=on|disp=flip}} long catfish with specialized barbed fishing points as early as 90,000&nbsp;years ago,<ref name="Miller2006" /><ref>[http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566394_12/human_evolution.html "Human Evolution," Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2007] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080408032236/http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566394_12/human_evolution.html |date=2008-04-08 }} Contributed by Richard B. Potts.</ref> and Neandertals and Middle Paleolithic ''Homo sapiens'' in Africa began to catch shellfish for food as revealed by shellfish cooking in Neanderthal sites in Italy about 110,000 years ago and Middle Paleolithic ''Homo sapiens'' sites at [[Pinnacle Point]], in Africa.<ref name="Miller2006" /><ref name="NYTIMES/10/08/07">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/science/18beach.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin|title=Key Human Traits Tied to Shellfish Remains|work=New York Times|author=John Noble Wilford|access-date=2008-03-11|date=2007-10-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140502014419/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/science/18beach.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin|archive-date=2014-05-02|url-status=live}}</ref>

Anthropologists such as [[Tim D. White]] suggest that [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]] was common in human societies prior to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, based on the large amount of "butchered human" bones found in Neandertal and other Middle Paleolithic sites.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-TVHr_XtDJcC&q=paleolithic+cannibalism&pg=PA338|title= Once were Cannibals |work=Evolution: A Scientific American Reader|author=Tim D. White |access-date=2008-02-14 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-74269-4 |date=2006-09-15}}</ref> Cannibalism in the Middle Paleolithic may have occurred because of food shortages.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061205-cannibals.html |title=Neandertals Turned to Cannibalism, Bone Cave Suggests |work=National Geographic News |author=James Owen |access-date=2008-02-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110924094502/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061205-cannibals.html |archive-date=2011-09-24 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

However it is also possible that Middle Paleolithic cannibalism occurred for religious reasons which would coincide with the development of religious practices thought to have occurred during the Upper Paleolithic.<ref>{{cite journal | author = Pathou-Mathis M | year = 2000 | title = Neandertal subsistence behaviours in Europe | journal = International Journal of Osteoarchaeology | volume = 10 | issue = 5 | pages = 379–395 | doi = 10.1002/1099-1212(200009/10)10:5<379::AID-OA558>3.0.CO;2-4| doi-access = free }}</ref><ref name=Narr>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://concise.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=109434&fullArticle=true&tocId=52333 |author=Karl J. Narr |title=Prehistoric religion |access-date=2008-03-28 |encyclopedia=Britannica online encyclopedia 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080409074119/http://concise.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=109434&fullArticle=true&tocId=52333 |archive-date=2008-04-09 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Nonetheless it remains possible that Middle Paleolithic societies never practiced cannibalism and that the damage to recovered human bones was either the result of [[excarnation]] or predation by carnivores such as [[saber-toothed cat]]s, [[lion]]s and [[hyena]]s.<ref name="Narr"/>