Hyper-Carnivores: Stone Age Humans Were Top Predators Who Ate Large Animals

A study by researchers from Tel Aviv University in collaboration with researchers from the University of Minho in Portugal revealed that Stone Age humans were hyper-carnivorous 'apex predators' that ate mostly the meat from large animals for almost two million years.

The publication Times of Israel reported that the study challenges the current view that early humans during the Pleistocene era were omnivores, those who eat both meat and vegetables, like modern humans.

One of the study's researchers, Professor Ran Barkai from the archaeology department of TAU said that their study addresses both scientific and non-scientific controversies.

"We propose a picture that is unprecedented in its inclusiveness and breadth, which clearly shows that humans were initially apex predators, who specialized in hunting large animals," he said.

The researchers published their full findings in the study entitled "The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene" in the Yearbook of the American Physical Anthropology Association.

Stone Age Humans' Diet Explained

The Israeli news outlet reported that the study has significant implications towards how people view the past and how modern humans' diet will be affected.

Barkai pointed out the fad Paleolithic diet that assumes early humans were omnivores who eat both meat, vegetables, nuts, and meats as those were the most natural food for consumption.

He added that it will hard to convince a devout vegetarian that their ancestors were meat-lovers because they might get confused with their personal beliefs with scientific study. Barkai noted that their work is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.

The researchers combined the techniques in studying genetics, metabolism, physiology, morphology, and archaeology in their study to see whether Stone Age humans were specialized carnivores or generalist omnivores.

The researchers said that acidity in the stomachs of early humans was high to protect from harmful bacteria when eating meat. Also, they looked at the fat structure in human cells and found that human is stored in much amount for predatory humans compared to omnivores.

Furthermore, geneticists cited human genome was closed-off to allow a fat-rich diet. Archaeological evidence also supports their hypothesis that argued stable isotopes found in bones of prehistoric humans point to consumption of meat and a high-fat content diet.

They believe that humans only began having plant-based diets 85,000 years ago when the population of larger animals as a food source started to decline.

Using Tools as Second Teeth

Fellow TAU researcher Miki Ben-Dor said that hunting might be a focal activity throughout human evolution given the specialized tools that past archaeologists obtained that supports the idea of large animals being part of the early human diet.

According to History, Homo habilis is called the "handyman" of early humans because of the thousands of flaked stone knives and fist-sized hammerstones found near large piles of animal-bone fragments with butcher marks.

These stone tools functioned as a second set of teeth for early humans to strip off the hunks of flesh from zebra carcass or to open bones and skulls to get the nutrient-rich marrows or brains. The tools made it easier for them to chew on the meat.

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