The California Academy of Sciences presents a talk by Teresa Steele, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropoplogy at the University of California, Davis. Steele’s research focuses on the emergence of the earliest people who were behaviorally, culturally, and anatomically modern.

I highly recommend investing an hour into watching this video. It’s a great archaeology/anthropology introduction for everyone interested in modern diets. It touches on a lot of the main concepts necessary to understand what the heck is being talked about when referencing the methods used to figure out what was going on during the paleolithic era. The talk is super-approachable for intro purposes, but Teresa Steele is also an actual scientist, so more advanced folks will probably appreciate some of what she discusses.

The Australopithecus afarensis to Agriculture Talk (3.4 million – 10,000 years ago)

One concept that seems obvious, but I’d never consciously considered is the size of animals eaten by humans vs. other primates. It’s easy to look at a timeline of the paleolithic and see that human ancestors ate some meat, but there’s a key distinction. Humans eat animals much larger than themselves, while all other primates eat animals much smaller than themselves. Thus, talking about primates as “meat eaters” is factually true, but it ignores a huge difference between Homo sapiens and other surviving species. Hunting large game necessitates a degree of cooperation that is on an entirely different level than the individuality of hunting small game. Since we know Homo neanderthalensis also hunted in groups, we can start to make some interesting comparisons with the rest of the Homo lineage.

I’d like to add to that one of the things that’s unique about humans among primates is how much meat we consume. A large percentage of our calories come from meat on average – compared to other primates. Amongst primates, chimpanzees eat the most amount of meat. And humans on average eat about 10x the amount of meat as other primates.”

The interesting question professor Steele attempts to address in her research and in this talk is: “When did the differences in human and chimpanzee diets evolve?” The implications of this answer impact us in terms of social organization, evolved behavior, and optimal diets in the modern context. A big factor in determining this is that there is little evidence of hominin plant consumption during the Acheulean (~1.6 m – 100,000 years ago) period of the paleolithic. Admittedly, part of this is because plant evidence doesn’t fossilize as well as bones, but it’s interesting that the plant eating assumption persists on such small amounts of evidence. As usual, this refutes the vegetarian position in terms of evolutionary biology.

Humans specialize in nutrient dense, hard to extract sources, while chimpanzees specialize in ripe fruits and plants that have low nutrient density which are also easily collected.”

The relative difficulty of resource extraction also carries implications for human society versus primates. This impacts the necessity of tool use and social organization to sustain expanding populations. Thomas Malthus’ famous prediction that human population would be restricted by a linear growth in the food supply compared to an exponential growth in population comes to mind. The Malthusian limit suffers from an assumption that humans are stuck in the chimpanzee mode of resource collection. To be fair to Malthus, it’s still possible that there is a limit on production that is simply beyond the date he predicted. Thus, the growth in production and population since his prediction doesn’t completely refute his hypothesis. The questions raised by Malthus remain at the foundations of geopolitical debates to this day.

Looking at this from the perspective of adaptive evolution, we also see foundations for hypotheses to explain the explosive growth in human brain size over the paleolithic. Dealing with the problems of tools and groups certainly placed different pressures on the evolution of humans. In other words, the information in this video underpins everything I write about on evolvify. Watch it. Love it.

Methods of study

  1. Archaeological record (tools, artifacts, bones)
  2. Skeletal morphology (bone mechanics & dental structure)
  3. bone chemistry

[cft format=0]

  • Human Diet Unique in High Meat Content
  • Australopithecus afarensis Diet
  • Cut-Marked Bones 2.5 Million Years Ago
  • Evidence of Ancient Hominids Eating Aquatic Animals
  • Acheulean Hunting and Scavenging (Homo erectus)
  • Exceptional Preservation Sites with Wood Spears
  • Neandertals in Europe
  • Bone Chemistry Findings
  • Hunting Technology
  • Middle Stone Age in Africa
  • Modern Humans in Europe
  • Plant Use
  • Intensification of Resource Extraction
  • Why Humans Replaced Neandertals
  • Conclusive Evidence of Cut Marks
  • Ratio of Fatty Acids in Diet and Brain Size
13 Comments
  1. David Csonka 13 years ago

    I wish she would have spoken more about Neanderthals. Ever since reading the website "them and us" I've wondered about neanderthal – homo sapien predation. The persistence of Big Foot type mythologies in the collective unconsciousness just makes it seem like a really neat theory to me.

    • Andrew 13 years ago

      Ever since you showed me that Neanderthal site, I've had nightmares about being attacked by every Geico mascot!

    • James 12 years ago

      I’m starting to lean away from Neanderthal extinction theory and toward to Neanderthal/Homo Sapien integration. In fact, I think there was a group of researchers who proved the genes are still out there.

  2. Don Matesz 13 years ago

    Awesome link, thank you very much!

    • Andrew 13 years ago

      My pleasure. It was the most on-point video I've seen in forever… couldn't pass it up.

  3. Darrin 13 years ago

    THANK YOU for posting this video! For Paleo geeks like myself, it don't get much more fascinating than this.

    • Andrew 13 years ago

      I'm with you. I watched it straight through to take notes, then went straight back and watched it again. Great stuff.

      • Juan 13 years ago

        Echoing everyone's comments. Only watched it once, so far, but took notes. Will look again. Anyone know what word she is using when she talks of the various animals in the assemblages? It sounded like bobbets, or am I just mis-remembering?

        Thanks.

        Juan

        • Author
          Teresa 13 years ago

          I'm glad that you all found something useful in my talk. Nice to know people are interested!

          I think the word you are referring to is "bovids" — a Family of animals that includes many common human prey species — in Africa: antelopes, gazelles, wildebeest, buffalo, etc. and in Europe: bison, aurochs, chamois, saiga. Bovids also includes sheep, goats and cows. In terms of human evolution, the other Families that were commonly hunted include "Cervids" (deer) and "Equids" (horses and zebras).

          Thanks for your interest,
          Teresa

          • Andrew 13 years ago

            Zillions of people are interested! Nice work Teresa. There's a relative dearth of this level of quality information outside of academia… especially in easily accessible video form.

  4. Author

    […] Greg Everett @ Catalyst Athletics Sauteed Red Cabbage with Apples How to Solve the AC Joint Riddle The Evolution of Human Diet December 22nd, 2010 | Category: […]

  5. Victoria 13 years ago

    This is excellent! There definitely seems to be a growing interest in this- Nature just published a short article 'The First Supper'. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7327_s

Leave a reply to Andrew Click here to cancel the reply

Evolvify ©2010 - 2024.

CONTACT US

We're not around right now. But you can send us an email and we'll get back to you, asap.

Sending

Log in with your credentials

Forgot your details?