After analyzing the shotgun-sequencing from the dental calculus of five Neanderthals from Spy, Belgium and El Sidron, Spain, the authors claim that populations of Neanderthals had vastly different diets that varied depending on their environment. Contrary to what was previously thought, only the Spy samples returned strong evidence of Neanderthals consuming large portions of meat. The El Sidron samples only contained sequences of plants and mushrooms.
Incredibly, one of the Neanderthal calculus samples returned the oldest commensal draft microbial genome sequenced to date at 48,000 years and was given its own subspecies designation: Methanobrevibacter oralis neandertalensis. The authors claim that the Neanderthal with both a dental abscess and evidence of living with a pathogen that causes acute diarrhea showed evidence of self-medication by consuming large amounts of poplar, which contains salicyclic acid (active ingredient in Aspirin) and sequences from Penicillium.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21674
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