![]() ![]() Some researchers hypothesize that eating more meat may have contributed to the enlarged human brain, enhanced cooperation and communication, and advances in stone tool technologies. As our ancestors ate more meat, the effects of this dietary transition may have been substantial. Meat may have been an especially attractive source of food for hominins because it provides a dense source of protein, iron, and other nutrients critical for growth, development, and body maintenance. Our closest primate relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, do sometimes eat meat, but not nearly as much as many modern humans. Very few non-human primates have any meat at all in their diets. We did not always consume meat to the extent that we do today. Substantial increases in brain size began at around two million years ago (Image Credit: Shutterstock). (B) Average hominin brain size based on fossil skull measurements. For example, while there is clear evidence that hominins could control fire for cooking dated to around 800,000 years ago, some scientists hypothesize that this behavior had started much earlier, and at least by the time at which hominin brain sizes started increasing rapidly. uncertain archaeological and fossil record evidence is shown for the development of stone tools, consistent meat-eating behavior, cooking with fire, and agriculture. Figure 1 - (A) Dietary transitions over the course of hominin evolution.Still, we have made some exciting progress in the reconstruction of this ancient history. These early shifts also occurred perhaps millions of years ago, so the evidence has had more time to degrade. There were fewer individuals alive, and those people were not living in permanent towns or cities. These changes are well-documented in the archaeological record.Įvidence of dietary shifts prior to the agricultural revolution is more difficult to find in the archaeological record ( Figure 1A). The dietary shift from hunting and gathering to farming led to major changes in human lifestyles and cultures, including the development of towns and cities and greater numbers of people. Agriculture is the domestication of plants and animals, or the purposeful breeding of these species by humans for the selection of desirable traits, such as larger fruit size in plants and friendly behavior in animals. We know that the agricultural revolution began ~12,000 years ago. For example, from 6 million to 12,000 years ago, all humans and our hominin ancestors were hunter-gatherers, not farmers. Some of our past dietary shifts are better understood than others. Using the Archaeological Record to Study Dietary Shifts Also, modern human teeth and jaw muscles are smaller than those of our ancestors, possibly because it became much easier to chew food after cooking began. Past dietary shifts may even have led to the growth and maintenance of our greatly enlarged (and energetically expensive) brains-the human brain requires the consistent consumption of highly nutritious foods. At some point our ancestors learned to cook with fire, which softened food for easier chewing and digestion. Some past cultural developments, such as tools for hunting, collecting, or processing foods, allowed our ancestors to begin eating new types of foods. The foods we enjoy and can digest today reflect ~6 million years of hominin biological and cultural evolution. What can studying the diets of our ancient ancestors tell us about human evolution and who we are today? Today, most humans are omnivores, meaning we eat many different types of food, including fruits, grains, nuts, vegetables, tubers (for example, potatoes), meats, and other animal products. Human Dietary Shifts: Biological and Cultural Evolution Tapeworms could only have been acquired once meat was being consistently consumed and then may have later adapted to heat stress from human cooking. In this article, we discuss how studies of human tapeworm parasites can help. However, the timing of some of these dietary shifts is extremely difficult to study with only archeological and fossil data, leading to uncertainty. Such dietary shifts are important to study because they were likely associated with important cultural and biological changes like tool use and increased brain size. For example, at various timepoints our ancestors began consistently eating meat, cooking food with fire, and consuming products from domesticated plants and animals. ![]() The human diet today is very different than the diets of other primates, implying major changes following the split of the human and chimpanzee/bonobo lineages about 6 million years ago. ![]()
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