Apparently, humans have been eating snails for some 30,000 years. The Paleolithic humans on the east coast of Spain may not have been dousing their escargot in butter and garlic, but they were collecting, cooking and eating snails roughly 10,000 years before any of their Mediterranean neighbors.

Archaeologists digging at an ancient artifact-rich site on Spain's Apparently, humans have been eating snails for some 30,000 years. The paleolithic humans on the east coast of Spain may not have been dousing their escargot in butter and garlic, but they were collecting, cooking and eating snails roughly 10,000 years before any of their Mediterranean neighbors.

Archaeologists digging at an ancient artifact-rich site on Spain's Costa Blanca, called Cova de la Barriada, discovered large concentrations of snail shells and stone tools in cooking pits dating back to the Gravettian era, a European tool building culture that stretched from 32,000 to 26,000 years ago.

"What this suggests is that these groups [of humans] had already opted for a strategy of diet diversification that allowed them to increase their population," Dr. Javier Fernández-López de Pablo, a researcher at the Catalan Institute of Human Palaeoecology and Evolution, recently told BBC News.

De Pablo is lead author of a new paper on the discovery, published this week in the latest edition of the journal PLOS ONE.

The research offers further insight into the evolution of the human diet, and proves that Homo sapiens began experimenting early on with new types of foods -- branching out and diversifying their diet. Still, researchers are unsure by human populations elsewhere on the Mediterranean coast -- in North Africa, France, Italy, Greece and the Middle East -- whom didn't begin eating snails until 10,000 years later.

In any case, these early humans were onto something. The Iberus alonensis snail, indigenous to the Iberian Peninsula, became a favorite delicacy of the Romans. The mollusk, which prefers dry soil and is often found among rosemary, lavender and thyme, is still served in restaurants throughout Spain., called Cova de la Barriada, discovered large concentrations of snail shells and stone tools in cooking pits dating to the Gravettian era, a European tool building culture that stretched from 32,000 to 26,000 years ago.

"What this suggests is that these groups [of humans] had already opted for a strategy of diet diversification that allowed them to increase their population," Dr. Javier Fernández-López de Pablo, a researcher at the Catalan Institute of Human Palaeoecology and Evolution, recently told BBC News.

De Pablo is lead author of a new paper on the discovery, published this week in the latest edition of the journal PLOS ONE.

The research offers further insight into the evolution of the human diet, and proves that Homo sapiens began experimenting early on with new types of foods -- branching out and diversifying their diet. Still, researchers are unsure by human populations elsewhere on the Mediterranean coast -- in North Africa, France, Italy, Greece and the Middle East -- who didn't begin eating snails until 10,000 years later.

In any case, these early humans were onto something. The Iberus alonensis snail, indigenous to the Iberian Peninsula, became a favorite delicacy of the Romans. The mollusk, which prefers dry soil and is often found among rosemary, lavender and thyme, is still served in restaurants throughout Spain.