Early human hunter-gatherers ate mostly plants and vegetables, according to archaeological findings that undermine the common view that our ancestors on a high protein, meat-heavy diet.
The evidence, from the remains of 24 individuals from two cemeteries in the Peruvian Andes dating between 9,000 and 6,500 years ago, suggests that wild potatoes and other root vegetables were once a dominant food source. the shift to an agricultural lifestyle.
“Conventional wisdom holds that early human economies focused on hunting — an idea that has led to a number of high-protein dietary fads such as the paleo diet,” said Dr. Randy Haas, an archaeologist at the University of Wyoming and senior author of the paper. “Our analysis shows that the diets are composed of 80% plant material and 20% meat.”
Some have previously suggested that the shift to agricultural economies was driven by overhunting, but the latest findings raise the possibility of a more gradual transition from foraging to farming.
The study focused on remains taken from the Wilamaya Patjxa and Soro Mik’aya Patjxa cemeteries, which are about a mile apart in the Andes Mountains. The scientists analyzed the bones and compared the chemical forms of carbon and nitrogen with those found in local plants and animals. The analysis suggested that plant foods made up the majority of the individuals’ diets, with meat playing a secondary role.
“Food is incredibly important and crucial to survival, especially in high-altitude environments like the Andes,” said Jennifer Chen, a PhD student in anthropology at Penn State University and first author of the paper, published in the journal PLOS One. “Many archaeological frameworks about hunter-gatherers, or foragers, focus on hunting and meat-heavy diets, but we find that early hunter-gatherers in the Andes ate mostly plant foods such as wild tubers.”
The researchers also found evidence of burnt plant remains from the sites and distinct patterns of dental wear on the upper incisors of several individuals indicating tubers, possibly wild potatoes, were the most prominent food source.
The analysis also indicated that large mammals, such as deer or llamas, made up most of the meat in the diet, rather than smaller mammals such as birds or fish.
Haas said the view that early humans ate mostly meat was widespread in archaeological circles. “If you would have talked to me before this study, I would have guessed that meat made up 80% of the diet,” he said. “It’s a fairly widespread assumption that human diets were dominated by meat.”
This view is driven in part by the archaeological record, which is biased towards evidence of meat-eating because stone tools and butchered animal bones are much more likely to be preserved than plant remains.
The biases of mostly male archaeologists from Western cultures, in which hunting is seen as a masculine pursuit, probably also played into perpetuating a “macho caveman” stereotype of early human society, according to Haas, who added that Similar biases may have colored research on early human diet in other regions of the world.
