Your favorite food may be something like pizza, but our ancestors, prehistoric cave-dwellers, never had such delicious nourishments. A new discovery at Qesem cave site in Israel has revealed that prehistoric human’s meals included a lot of tortoise.

The cave has been a site of research on early humans since it discovery over 15 years ago. Researchers found clues suggesting that ancient man occupied the cave more than 200,000 years ago, and enjoyed munching on roasted tortoise. They concluded that after finding remains at the cave’s levels.

About the archeological discovery at the Qesem cave site, archaeologist archaeologist Ran Barkai said, “The evidence shows they regularly ate turtle. It was a sort of supplementary dish, maybe like a dessert or an opener to dinner”.

Barkai, an archeologist from Israel’s Tel Aviv, and his team also discovered that our ancestors not only had a taste for tortoise, but the animal was also a part of a large game. Ancient humans hunted tortoise, deer and other larger game animals. It was part of their daily activities, said the archeologist team.

The team examined the animal remains they excavated from Qesem and found that early humans believed in utilizing every part of the hunted animal. They not only roasted tortoises and other animals they hunted, but also sucked animal bones’ marrow. Meal that included tortoise in it was an interesting one for hunter-gatherers, and they consumed the animal by breaking its shell, as per the discovery.

The remains suggested that tortoise hunting had social significance for Qesem humans, said Avi Gopher, an archaeologist and co-author of the research. Youth was a significant part of deer hunting, while tortoise was captured by anyone due to animal’s slow movements, Gopher added.