Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific breakthroughs and more.
What did Stone Age people eat before the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago? An ancient stereotype—one that has influenced modern fad diets—is that ancient humans hunted large animals and ate mammoth steak.
But new research into a Paleolithic group called the Iberomaurusians, hunter-gatherers who buried their dead in the Taforalt cave in what is now Morocco between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago, is adding to a growing body of evidence that challenges the notion of that human ancestors relied predominantly on meat. , according to a study published Monday in the journal Ecology and Evolution of Nature.
Scientists analyzed chemical signatures preserved in bones and teeth belonging to at least seven different Iberomaurusians and found that plants, not meat, were their main source of dietary protein.
“Our analysis showed that these hunter-gatherer groups included an important amount of plant matter, wild plants, in their diet, which changed our understanding of the diet of pre-agricultural populations,” said study lead author Zineb Moubtahij, PhD student. at Géosciences Environnement Toulouse, a research institute in France, and at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
The percentage of plant resources as a source of dietary protein in the humans whose remains were studied was similar to that observed in the early farmers of the Levant, the present-day Eastern Mediterranean countries, where plant domestication and agriculture were first documented.
The researchers also detected a greater number of tooth decay among the Taforalt specimens than typically seen in hunter-gatherer remains from that period. Evidence suggested that Iberomaurus consumed “fermented starchy plants” such as wild cereals or acorns, according to the study. The findings raise some intriguing questions about how agriculture spread across different regions and populations.
“Although not all individuals primarily obtained their proteins from plants at Taforalt, it is unusual to document such a high proportion of plants in the diet of a pre-agricultural population,” said co-author Klervia Jaouen, a researcher at Géosciences Environnement Toulouse, in a study. email.
“This is probably the first time that such a significant plant component in a Paleolithic diet has been documented using isotopic techniques,” Jaouen added.
Deciphering ancient diets
The researchers used a technique called stable isotope analysis to learn about the diet of each of the Iberomaurus studied.
Nitrogen and zinc isotopes (variants of an element) contained in collagen and tooth enamel can reveal how much meat ancient diets contained, while carbon isotopes can clarify whether the main source of protein was meat or fish.
“Humans consume these foods and the isotopic information is recorded in tissues such as bones and teeth,” said Moubtahij. “By analyzing these tissues that we find in the archaeological record, we can know whether a person ate more meat or whether they ate more plant foods.”
The isotopic technique shows the quantity of plants consumed, but not the type. However, botanical remains of charred sweet acorns, pistachios, pine nuts, wild oats and legumes discovered at the site support the information gathered from the human remains. Whetstones unearthed at the site also suggest that processing of the plant took place nearby.
However, the Iberomaurusians were not strict vegetarians, the study noted. Cut marks on the remains of Barbary sheep and gazelles, as well as ancient horse- and cow-like mammals, suggested that some animals had been butchered and processed for food.
The increased reliance on plant foods was likely driven by several factors — including a greater variety of edible plants and perhaps a depletion of large game species, according to the study.
Clues about early weaning
Isotope analysis also detected evidence of a case of early weaning, with starchy plant foods introduced into a child’s diet before his death, between 6 and 12 months of age.
“This contrasts with hunter-gatherer societies, where prolonged periods of breastfeeding are the norm due to limited availability of weaning foods,” according to the study.
The research only investigated the diets of a group of Stone Age hunter-gatherers. However, a similar study published in January — which analyzed the remains of 24 early humans from two cemeteries in Peru dating from 9,000 to 6,500 years ago — revealed that ancient diets in the Andes were made up of 80% plant matter and 20% meat.
A November 2022 study revealed that Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens were sophisticated cooks, combining plant ingredients such as wild nuts, peas, vetch, lentils and wild mustard.
“I don’t think there is a standard diet for everyone (during this period), but it depends on the environment. Humans are resilient and flexible in their eating habits,” said Moubtahij.
The work undermines the idea that the Stone Age diet was rich in meat – a rigid assumption perpetuated by current dietary trends such as the Paleo diet. But the stereotype likely has roots in past research, and there are a few possible reasons for it.
Evidence of meat consumption, in the form of bones from butchered animals, is often more “archaeologically visible” than evidence of plant consumption, said Briana Pobiner, a research scientist and museum educator in the Human Origins Program in the department. of anthropology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. She was not involved in the study.
Another reason for the idea that meat was central to early human diets is “the realization that hunting was a fundamental behavioral innovation that occurred early in our evolutionary history – rooted in part in early hunter-gatherer studies by scholars of males that focused primarily on big game hunting by men and did not document, disregarded or minimized the important dietary role of women in gathering game resources and smaller plants,” she said in an email.
Revelations of the agricultural transition
Jaouen said that in the Levant region, archaeologists have documented a similar plant-based diet among another group that practiced a hunting and gathering lifestyle just before the development of agriculture, raising questions about why the transition to agriculture did not occur. simultaneously among the Iberomaurusian population.
“These findings indicate that several populations in the late Paleolithic adopted a diet similar in terms of plant content to that of farmers,” she said.
The transition to agriculture was a complex process that occurred at different times and occurred at different paces, in different ways with different foods, in different places, Pobiner said.
“In other words, it was largely a local phenomenon that could involve transitory forms of subsistence – not a single, sharp and simultaneous global change,” he added.
For more news and newsletters from CNN, create an account at CNN.com
