What Are the “Costs and Benefits” of Meat-Eating in Human Evolution? The Challenging Contribution of Behavioral Ecology to Archeology

Abstract

Despite the omnivorous diet of most human populations, meat foraging gradually increased during the Paleolithic, in parallel with the development of hunting capacities. There is evidence of regular meat consumption by extinct hominins from 2 Ma onward, with the first occurrence prior to 3 Ma in Eastern Africa. The number of sites with cut-marked animal remains and stone tools increased after 2 Ma. In addition, toolkits became increasingly complex, and various, facilitating carcass defleshing and marrow recovery, the removal of quarters of meat to avoid carnivore competition, and allowing the emergence of cooperative (i.e., social) hunting of large herbivores. How can we assess the energy costs and benefits of meat and fat acquisition and consumption for hunter-gatherers in the past, and is it possible to accurately evaluate them? Answering this question would provide a better understanding of extinct hominin land use, food resource management, foraging strategies, and cognitive abilities related to meat and fat acquisition, processing, and consumption. According to the Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT), resources may be chosen primarily on the basis of their efficiency rank in term of calories. But, could other factors, and not only calorific return, prevail in the choice of prey, such as the acquisition of non-food products, like pelts, bone tools or ornaments, or symbolic or traditional uses? Our main goal here is to question the direct application of behavioral ecology data to archeology. For this purpose, we focus on the issue of animal meat and fat consumption in human evolution. We propose a short review of available data from energetics and ethnographic records, and provide examples of several various-sized extant animals, such as elephants, reindeer, or lagomorphs, which were some of the most common preys of Paleolithic hominins.

Assessing the role of meat consumption in human evolutionary changes. A review

“…The first revolution in eating habits occurred with the "discovery" of fire by the modern human ancestor, Homo erectus. Cooking and using fire were originally very rare and may have originated with Homo erectus in Africa about 1.8 million years ago [25]. Fire must have allowed them and subsequent modern humans (such as Homo sapiens) to make better use of food.…”

“…The first cases of meat consumption by early hominins were noted in Africa about 3.4 million years ago in Dikika, Ethiopia [25].…”

“…Significant evidence of the consumption of meat and bone marrow are traces of meat cutting found on the bones. About 2 million years ago, an increase in the number of sites with animal remains with cut marks and stone tools was noted in East Africa [25]. The earliest, well-documented evidence of persistent carnivorous feeding behavior for early humans and animal consumption (carnivory) from fossil fauna obtained in situ comes from a large concentration of stone tools and numerous bone elements processed by hominins and age-dated back to about 2.0 million years, which are located at the Oldowan site in Kanjera, Kenya [36].…”

“…Tool sets may also have been necessary for hominins to cut carcasses, with cutting edges for processing soft tissue, as well as percussion tools for extracting bone marrow. With the onset of the Acheulean period and the emergence of Homo erectus populations sensu lato in Africa, between 1.9 and 1.7 million years ago, a change in diet was observed with more evidence of carnivorous and predatory behavior [25].…”

“…Meat consumption occurred quite early in human evolution, but habitual meat consumption, complex forms of cooperative hunting, entire meat cutting sequences, and the transport of bones and carcasses, which require advanced cognitive skills such as planning and decision-making, appear to have evolved later, not earlier than 1 million years ago, throughout the African continent and the Levant in combination with environmental changes of the early Middle Pleistocene [25]. Later, in Western Europe, a large number of remains of herbivores were discovered at Middle Paleolithic sites (about 400 to 40 thousand years ago) [25]. Results from isotope ratio studies [38,39] and dental wear data [40] show a significant intake of animal proteins in the diet of Neanderthal men.…”