Snakes were part of the ancient people’s diet for 3,000 years — scientists have found evidence of them being butchered

Even more interestingly, reptile bones were found in all 20 archaeological layers at the El-Wad-Terras site, spanning approximately 3,000 years — from 15,000 to 12,000 years ago. This points not to an occasional meal, but to a sustained dietary practice among one of the earliest settled communities in the southern Levant. However, not every snake or lizard bone found necessarily belonged to human prey: some of the reptiles may have died of natural causes or been brought to the site by birds of prey.

Traces of flint knives were found on the snake bones

The study focuses on the Natufian site of El-Wad-Terrass in the Mount Carmel region of modern-day Israel. The Natufian culture existed immediately prior to the transition to agriculture and is known for the fact that some hunter-gatherer groups began to remain in one place for longer periods and establish relatively stable settlements.

During the excavations, archaeologists found thousands of snake and lizard bones. The researchers examined them under a microscope, looking for signs of cutting, burning, predation, trampling and natural decay.

The most compelling evidence of human activity was found on 82 vertebrae from large snakes. Some of the bones bore several parallel incisions in exactly the same place. Such repetition is difficult to explain by accidental damage and is consistent with the butchering of an animal using a sharp stone tool.

It is precisely the arrangement of the cuts that makes the find particularly compelling: a single scratch on an ancient bone does not in itself prove butchering, whereas dozens of similarly arranged marks form a recurring pattern.

Reptiles were consumed not just for a single season, but for millennia

The authors analysed finds from 20 consecutive archaeological layers at El Wada. Taken together, these span approximately three millennia of Natufian settlement — roughly 15,000 to 12,000 years ago. The remains of snakes and lizards were present throughout this sequence.

This is precisely what sets the new study apart from previous research.

Back in 2020, Maayan Lev, Mina Weinstein-Evron and Reuven Yeshurun presented the first evidence that the Natufians of El-Wad may have consumed large snakes and lizards. At that time, the researchers conducted experiments to determine what kinds of damage are caused to bones by butchering, cooking, predators, trampling and natural processes.

This new study significantly broadens that picture: the focus is no longer on isolated, suspicious bones, but on a long-term dietary strategy that can be traced throughout the site’s entire history of occupation.

People selected large reptiles

Judging by the distribution of the remains, the Natufians did not catch every snake indiscriminately.

The yellow-bellied lizard Pseudopus apodus — a large legless lizard that can grow to over a metre in length — was particularly common among the bones. Among the snakes, the large snake Dolichophis jugularis and the eastern lizard snake Malpolon insignitus accounted for a significant proportion.

These are relatively large animals, which provided more meat than small lizards and snakes.

The authors suggest that this choice was economically rational: the most attractive prey were large, relatively accessible and not overly dangerous reptiles. Venomous vipers were encountered much less frequently.

However, it is important here to distinguish between fact and interpretation. The butchering marks directly indicate that some snakes were processed by humans. The assumption that humans were particularly attracted to ‘large, slow and safe’ species, however, is merely an explanation for the observed distribution of the animals.

A large number of snake bones at an archaeological site does not in itself prove anything.

Birds of prey are capable of swallowing small reptiles whole and then regurgitating the undigested bones. Snakes and lizards may also crawl into human dwellings of their own accord and perish there. Once buried, the remains are damaged by soil, water and people’s feet.

The team therefore spent several years developing a method to distinguish between such processes.

In a previous experimental study, modern snake and lizard bones were subjected to cutting, heating, trampling and other stresses, and were compared with traces of digestion by predators. The resulting damage was compared with archaeological material from El Wad.

It thus became clear that the origins of the different groups of bones varied. Some small reptiles were indeed, in all likelihood, brought to the site by other animals. However, for larger species, the evidence was more consistent with human hunting and processing.

The discovery of a further 82 vertebrae bearing repetitive cuts lends considerable weight to this conclusion.

The longer people lived in one place, the more frequently they ate reptiles

The researchers observed another pattern: the proportion of large reptiles most likely hunted by humans increased during periods of more intensive settlement use. When the site was used less permanently or more seasonally, this proportion decreased.

This fits well with broader changes in the Natufians’ way of life.

For mobile hunter-gatherers, one way to cope with the depletion of resources around a settlement was simply to move to another location. But as mobility decreased, people had to make increasingly intensive use of the food resources immediately surrounding the settlement.

Earlier studies of the Natufian fauna had already shown an expansion of the diet to include small animals during periods of intensive occupation. This is interpreted as one of the signs of growing pressure on local food resources.

Snakes and large lizards may have formed part of such a strategy.

However, it cannot be said that the transition to a sedentary lifestyle forced people to eat reptiles: the study shows a correlation between settlement density and the use of these animals, rather than a simple cause-and-effect relationship.

Snakes were not necessarily the main course

There is another important caveat.

The large number of reptile bones makes it impossible to determine directly what proportion of food or calories they provided for the Natufians. Snakes have many small vertebrae, so a single animal can leave behind significantly more bone fragments than a large mammal.

Consequently, the statement that ‘reptiles made up a significant part of the diet’ should be treated with caution.

It is more reliable to say that large snakes and lizards were a regularly utilised food source that the inhabitants of El Wad exploited over a very long period of time.

Furthermore, this new study is not the first evidence of reptile consumption by the Natufians. The team published the first evidence from the same site back in 2020. At that time, however, the evidence base was considerably smaller.

What snakes tell us about life before the advent of agriculture

The Natufian culture is of particular interest to archaeologists because it existed on the cusp of one of the greatest changes in human history.

People were not yet farmers, but some communities had already become less mobile, were building settlements and were making increasingly intensive use of the resources around them.

Against this backdrop, snake vertebrae turn out to be more than just an unusual item on an ancient menu.

They demonstrate just how diverse the range of resources available to hunter-gatherers might have been as they transitioned towards a more settled way of life. Large game was supplemented by birds, turtles, hares, plants — and, as is now becoming increasingly clear, snakes and lizards.

And the recurring marks left by flint knives even allow us to visualise the specific task a person was carrying out some 15,000 years ago whilst butchering a snake they had caught.

Source

Study:“Three millennia of lizard and snake consumption by Natufian foragers”.

Authors: Ma’ayan Lev, Mina Weinstein-Evron, Reuven Yeshurun.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Volume 123, Issue 35, 2026.