While completing research for this post, I was surprised to find an article on fashionable feathers among, get this, Neanderthals. While investigating a cave near Verona, Italy, paleoanthropologist Marco Peresani and colleagues found 660 bird bones. "Cut, peeling and scrape marks are observed exclusively on wings, indicating the intentional removal of large feathers," he stated.
Peresani believes the bird feathers were used for ornamentation and not another, more practical purpose. Of the 22 bird species found de-feathered, most were not known to be good food sources, and during investigation, it was evident that only certain feathers were plucked. "[They] removed the remiges, which are the longest and more beautiful feathers," Peresani said. Makes you wonder what else Neanderthals were rocking...
