Humans in ancient times enjoyed escargots long before the dish became a European delicacy, researchers said in a new study published Wednesday.

As much as 30,000 years ago, Homo sapiens inhabiting the area of Benidorm, Spain, were eating snails, making them the first known people group to include snails in their diet, BBC News reported.

 "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," lead researcher Javier Fernández-López de Pablo of the Catalan Insitute of Human Palaeoecology and Evolution told BBC News.

Archaeologists have unearthed plenty of snail shells scattered among stone tools and remains of other animals in ancient cooking pits found at the Cova de la Barriada in Spain. During excavation of the site, the researchers discovered 112 Iberus alonensis specimens that are similar in size and large enough to be adults.

Based on their findings, the researchers believe that ancient humans purposely selected adult snails for consumption to conserve the species.

The fossils mark "clearly the oldest record [of snail consumption] we have so far," Fernández-López de Pablo said.

An outside expert described the discovery as an example of people experimenting with their resources.

"Humans evolved in Africa and then spread out and colonized the whole of Eurasia, and in each of these new environments they were moving in and adapting," said Alex Pryor of the University of Southampton, as quoted by BBC News.

"You see people beginning to use more of the smaller resources ... I see the land snail as another example of catching small animals," he said.

Snails are viewed as a delicacy in modern Spain and are celebrated each year with a festival in Lleida, Catalonia.

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