What did early humans eat? We know what Romans, Greeks, and other early modern humans ate from their writings. But what about humans from pre-history?
The earliest humans, including Australopithecus (2 to 4 million years ago), had large molars indicating a diet of mostly tough, fibrous plants, nuts, and roots. Homo erectus ("Upright Man") and Homo Habilis ("Handy Man") had sharp incisors that allowed them to tear meat from bones. Both human ancestors lived 1.5 to 2 million years ago, and around that time, a dramatic increase in protein in the human diet led to a large growth spurt in the human brain.
Homo Hablis was one of the first human species to use tools, which allowed for a much more varied diet. The "handy man" was likely the first in our lineage to include a significant amount of meat in their diet, using their tools to scavenge marrow from bones that other predators couldn't crack open. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has pieced together the foraging behavior from their prehistoric leftovers.
Bones left behind at campsites were a collection of 1.6-million-year-old fossils unearthed from "prehistoric wetlands in East Africa, which included animal bones and teeth from hominins," according to an article in Nautilus. The bones were primarily from large bovine legs, and the distinctive marks of Homo Hablis tools were found on them.
But what was even more interesting is what the researchers didn’t find. Carnivore teeth marks on the bones were rare, and the ends of the limbs, which predators love to gnaw on first, were largely intact. This was a big clue that our hominin ancestors had access to the carcasses soon after death. Whether they hunted the animals themselves or chased predators off from fresh kills remains up for debate, but the evidence points to a more active role rather than just passive scavenging.
Research indicates that, instead of staying at a kill site, where they were vulnerable to larger predators such as lions and leopards, early humans practiced a form of "takeout."They would quickly strip meat from choice parts, such as bovine legs, and abscond with the limbs to a safer location to eat. We still can't be sure that H. Hablis actually hunted and killed the meat they ate.
Regardless of how prehistoric human ancestors came by their meat, the evidence suggests they hadn’t yet climbed to the top of the food chain in ancient Africa. The bones discovered at the sites were mostly limbs and a few heads from larger animals (with an occasional full carcass from a small antelope). In other words, these ancient hominins tended to abscond with a few choice parts of the carcass, rather than lugging the whole thing to a processing site. To the researchers, this hints that our ancestors at the time were still feeling pressure from fellow carnivores, and couldn’t chance sticking around a fresh kill for too long.
Even then, our ancestors preferred take-out to dining in.
They may have been "hunters of opportunity," sometimes chasing predators off a recent kill or finding the remnants of a kill left by a competitor. And when a prey animal was hurt, they gladly accepted the gift.
Tools were used to smash bones open, accessing the calorie-rich marrow that other scavengers couldn't reach. This allowed humans to live longer lives, allowing more knowledge to be passed on to the next generation. Before writing, this was critical to survival.
However, meat is a high-risk, high-reward food source. Plants, tubers, and fruits provided a more reliable, "low-risk" daily caloric baseline. And diets varied wildly depending on the environment. Groups in lush areas likely ate more fruit and plants, while those in harsher climates relied more on meat.
This adaptability turned out to be humans' secret weapon. When the climate changed or a natural disaster occurred, and traditional food sources disappeared, humans could adapt to the new paradigm, while herbivores and other carnivores struggled and eventually died off.
