Nooo! Apparently, Cavemen Ate Pandas

I don’t know about you, but the the first image of prehistoric man that comes to my mind is a band of fur-draped hunter-gatherers chucking spears at saber-toothed tigers. That’s just the imagery I’ve been instilled with. It suffices to say that perspective changes today.

In lieu of hunting big-fanged cats, cavemen that dwelled in the region that is now Chongqing, China may have hunted the very symbol of China itself: The Giant Panda. According to head scientist Wei Guangbiao of the Three Gorges Paleoanthropology Institute in Chongqing, discovered fossils show that pandas were once “slashed to death by man.” Guangbiao goes on to say that man, in primitive times, would not have killed an animal that was useless to them, suggesting the pandas were likely killed for food.

Now when I think of ancient man, I still see the same slack-jawed, spear-wielding neanderthals — only this time they’ve got the jump on some poor panda and one thing comes to mind: I wonder what it tastes like.

via Huffington Post