Early human ancestors didn't regularly eat meat

By Jake Buehler
Science News

Some of our species’ earliest ancestors may have spent a lot more time eating salad than steak.

An analysis of the chemical composition of fossilized teeth in Australopithecus africanus — an early relative of humans — suggests the bipedal primates had primarily vegetarian diets, researchers report in the Jan. 17 Science. The findings provide direct evidence of where one of humanity’s earliest ancestors sat in its local food web over 3 million years ago.

Diet has been a crucial component of human evolution, says Tina Lüdecke, a geochemist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. A switch from a vegetarian diet to the habitual consumption of high-protein foods like meat is hypothesized to have fueled the evolution of humans’ cognitive superpowers. “These high-quality foods provide us with a lot of energy, which we need to power our huge brains,” Lüdecke says.

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