We all know fish is good brain food, but now researchers from Bradford University have found it probably contributed to the survival of modern man.

While Neanderthal man, who lived roughly 150,000 to 30,000 years ago, relied on land animals for protein, the more sophisticated early modern human, who lived between 20,000 and 28,000 years ago, cast his net a little wider in the search for food.

New research has revealed modern man supplemented his diet with fish and aquatic animals. While modern man thrived on his diet of fish, Neanderthals, with their Spartan and inflexible diet, became extinct.

The shift in eating habits is revealed in new research by the University of Bradford, the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona and Washington University.

By studying and comparing the skulls of early modern human skeletons with those of Neanderthals they have found evidence of the growing importance of aquatic animals in the diet of humans.

Compared to Neanderthals living in inland Europe up to 100,000 years earlier, who relied primarily on land animals for their protein, early modern humans supplemented their diets with a significant amount of fish and waterfowl.

Dr Michael Richards, pictured, of Bradford University's Department of Archaeological Sciences said: "This new information highlights the differences in diets between Neanderthals and early modern humans and shows that modern humans were more flexible and adaptable in their dietary choices.

"This ability to adapt and use a range of resources could perhaps have given us, as a species, a competitive edge over the Neanderthals."

The evidence has been outlined in a paper called Stable, revealing evidence for increasing dietary breadth in the European mid-Upper Paleolithi, which is due to appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in America.

The study compares the chemical analyses of collagen samples from nine early modern human skeletons found in Europe and western Asia with previously published results on five Neanderthals from the western portion of the same general geographic area.

The authors conclude the broader diet of early modern humans may have increased their resilience to natural pressures and human population growth in Europe at the time.

The work was supported by the Wenner-Gren and L.S.B Leakey Foundations and the Prehistoric Society.