New study calls into question the importance of meat eating in shaping
our evolution

Date:
January 24, 2022
Source:
George Washington University
Summary:
A new study calls into question the primacy of meat eating in
early human evolution.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Quintessential human traits such as large brains first appear in Homo erectusnearly 2 million years ago. This evolutionary transition towards
human- like traitsis often linked to a major dietary shift involving
greater meat consumption.A new study published today in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences,however, calls into question the
primacy of meat eating in early human evolution. While the archaeological evidence for meat eating increases dramatically after the appearance of
Homo erectus, the study authors argue that this increase can largely be explained by greater research attention on this time period, effectively skewing the evidence in favor of the "meat made us human" hypothesis.


========================================================================== "Generations of paleoanthropologists have gone to famously well-preserved
sites in places like Olduvai Gorge looking for -- and finding --
breathtaking direct evidence of early humans eating meat, furthering
this viewpoint that there was an explosion of meat eating after 2 million
years ago," W. Andrew Barr, an assistant professor of anthropology at the George Washington University and lead author on the study, said. "However,
when you quantitatively synthesize the data from numerous sites across
eastern Africa to test this hypothesis, as we did here, that 'meat
made us human' evolutionary narrative starts to unravel." Barr and
his colleagues compiled published data from nine major research areas
in eastern Africa, including 59 site levels dating between 2.6 and 1.2
million years ago. They used several metrics to track hominin carnivory:
the number of zooarchaeological sites preserving animal bones that have
cut marks made by stone tools, the total count of animal bones with cut
marks across sites, and the number of separately reported stratigraphic
levels.

The researchers found that, when accounting for variation in sampling
effort over time, there is no sustained increase in the relative amount
of evidence for carnivory after the appearance of H. erectus. They
note that while the raw abundance of modified bones and the number of zooarchaeological sites and levels all demonstrably increased after the appearance of H. erectus, the increases were mirrored by a corresponding
rise in sampling intensity, suggesting that intensive sampling -- rather
than changes in human behavior - - could be the cause.

"I've excavated and studied cut marked fossils for over 20 years, and our findings were still a big surprise to me," Briana Pobiner, a research
scientist in the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian's National
Museum of Natural History and co-author on the study, said. "This study
changes our understanding of what the zooarchaeological record tells us
about the earliest prehistoric meat-eating. It also shows how important
it is that we continue to ask big questions about our evolution, while we
also continue to uncover and analyze new evidence about our past." In the future, the researchers stressed the need for alternative explanations
for why certain anatomical and behavioral traits associated with modern
humans emerged. Possible alternative theories include the provisioning
of plant foods by grandmothers and the development of controlled fire
for increasing nutrient availability through cooking. The researchers
caution that none of these possible explanations currently have a strong grounding in the archaeological record, so much work remains to be done.

"I would think this study and its findings would be of interest not
just to the paleoanthropology community but to all the people currently
basing their dieting decisions around some version of this meat-eating narrative," Barr said. "Our study undermines the idea that eating large quantities of meat drove evolutionary changes in our early ancestors."
In addition to Barr and Pobiner, the research team included John Rowan,
an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Albany;
Andrew Du, an assistant professor of anthropology and geography at
Colorado State University; and J. Tyler Faith, an associate professor
of anthropology at the University of Utah.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by George_Washington_University. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. W. Andrew Barr, Briana Pobiner, John Rowan, Andrew Du, J. Tyler
Faith. No
sustained increase in zooarchaeological evidence for carnivory after
the appearance of Homo erectus. Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, 2022; 119 (5): e2115540119 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2115540119 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220124151115.htm

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