Hominid lifestyle and diet reconsidered: paleo-environmental and comparative data

Human consumption of turtles of the Homo rudolfensis site Uraha (Malawi, East Africa)

“…This combines with damages of an otherwise complete turtle shell by early humans. This evidence of consumption of aquatic animals could support an «aquatic ape hypothesis» in the sense of Morgan (1997), Verhaegen (2000 and Niemitz (2006Niemitz ( , 2010.…”

“…Two bony plates are herewith proposed for discussion as potential tools of Homo rudolfensis (HLMD 83: Plate 3, figures 1-2; HLMD 89: Plate 3, figures 3-4). This evidence of the consumption of aquatic animals could support an «aquatic ape hypothesis» (Morgan, 1997;Verhaegen, 2000;Niemitz, 2006Niemitz, , 2010. They remarkably resemble to scrapers or choppers of wood, flint or bone of other hominid localities.…”

“…Nevertheless, there is a completely natural sequence of small behavioural innovations that could lead from early australopithecines to modern humans (Golding, 1972;Nishida, 1980;Ellis, 1991;Chadwik, 1995;Yamakoshi, 1998). According Verhaegen & Puech (2000) and own results the follow synoptic presentation is valid for the relations between ecological circumstances, lifestyle and evolution of bipedalism in humans: all hominoids frugivory and herbivory in tropical forests chimps and gorillas using stones to crack hard-shelled fruits and nuts frugi-and herbivory also in forest clearings plus «short»-legged bipedal wading in shallow waters plus more frequent surface-swimming modern humans long-legged bipedalism on land early hominids wading and swimming also in mangrove forests plus feeding on bivalves growing on lower tree parts using shells or stones to crush shellfish using bone tools and stones for opening turtles using stone tools for various purposes colonizing the seashores and rivers as omnivores re-invasion of the land along the rivers…”

Book review

“…It has not engaged with the extensive research literature on palaeo-diet and locomotor behaviour, on hunting weaponry and butchery of terrestrial animals." Again, on the contrary, these items have been addressed extensively by AH literature and in the eBook: butchering of animals is explicitly dealt with in Chapter 5 of the eBook , the palaeo-diet is referred to in Chapter 4 and in Verhaegen and Puech (2000), and the locomotor behaviour of hominins, as explained by Bramble and Lieberman (2004), has been critically addressed by Verhaegen et al (2007).…”

New Directions

“…It is true that fossilisation in terrestrial settings mostly occurs in sedimentation in quiet waters and that this alone by no means suggests that the animals fossilised lived in these waters, but it is also the case that this does not exclude the possibility that they might have spent more or less time in these waters. Preliminary (Verhaegen and Puech 2000) and more thorough studies (Munro 2004, and Chapter 6 in this book) of the fauna associated New Directions in Palaeoanthropology 3 with hominid palaeoenvironments reveal that the aquatic components are often both significant and considerable. (2) Anthropologists who construct models of the original human econiche tend to focus on the fossil evidence.…”