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Using cutting-edge technology, CU paleoanthropologist helps unravel what humans鈥� ancient predecessors actually ate, helps show 鈥榟ow we became us鈥�

Those who eat like 鈥渃avemen鈥� or follow a 鈥淧aleo Diet鈥� will get 鈥淣eanderthin,鈥� some weight-loss books contend. The premise is that people should eat like their ancient forebears, avoiding carbs and favoring lean meat and vegetables.

But this broth lacks something: Scientists are still figuring out what early hominins actually ate. And while the picture is not complete, it is more complex than previously thought.

Matt Sponheimer, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado, has helped increase human understanding of what ancient hominins ate. Research on ancient hominin diet, he notes, is the study of 鈥渉ow we became us.鈥�

As hominins migrated throughout ancient Africa, some began using tools, which could suggest that our relatives were hunting and eating meat.

But, 鈥淚f you look at stone tools, you鈥檙e going to over-emphasize animal foods,鈥� Sponheimer says. 鈥淲e have good reason to believe that most ancient diets were plant-based.鈥�

This view differs from what emerged after the 1924 discovery of听Australopithecus africanus,听an extinct hominin, in South Africa.听础耻蝉迟谤补濒辞辫颈迟丑别肠耻蝉,听which had human characteristics, was found on the edge of the Kalahari Desert 鈥渋n an area no living ape could survive,鈥� Sponheimer says.

The hostile environment and the presence of tools at some hominin sites led to the inference of ancient hominins as hunters. As one writer famously proclaimed: 鈥淣ot in innocence, and not in Asia, was mankind born.鈥�

Not so fast, Sponheimer suggests. 鈥淲hen we find stone tools, there are often multiple hominins around, and so who was using them?鈥� Scientists don鈥檛 know.

Further, the earliest evidence of tool usage is 2.5 million years ago, but there are millions of years of hominin evolution prior to that. Tools might also have been used for non-hunting purposes or for occasional hunting. By themselves, stone tools are not rock-solid proof of highly carnivorous hominin diets.

Hominin anatomy gives other dietary clues.听Paranthropus boisei, for instance, had huge jaws, big teeth, and massive muscles of mastication. This led to the idea that听Paranthropus boisei听ate hard foods like nuts and seeds along with low-nutrient, high-fiber foods鈥攕tuff that required a lot of chewing.

However, steadily growing volume of data indicates that hominin anatomy tells us what they were able to eat, not necessarily what they did eat. For instance, this year, Sponheimer was part of a team of researchers that foundParanthropus boisei, nicknamed 鈥淣utcracker Man,鈥� probably didn鈥檛 eat nuts. Instead, the hominin predominantly ate tropical grasses or sedges.

鈥淣utcracker Man鈥檚鈥� diet was almost the same as that of ancient zebras, pigs, warthogs and hippos, the National Science Foundation, which sponsored the research, reported.

Sponheimer, who churns out colorful phrases as routinely as important journal articles, put it this way: 鈥淔rankly, we didn鈥檛 expect to find the primate equivalent of a cow dangling from a remote twig of our family tree.鈥�

Headline writers riffed on that theme. As 麻豆视频 magazine wrote, 鈥淥ur ancient cousin 鈥楴utracker Man鈥� actually ate like a cow.鈥�

In a paper published in Science this October, Sponheimer and other researchers added more depth to the picture. The team found that hominin diets varied by where they lived.笔补谤补苍迟丑谤辞辫耻蝉听groups in eastern Africa probably ate grasses or sedges, while those in South Africa probably ate harder food like nuts and seeds.

These results stem from analysis of dental microwear and carbon isotopes and were surprising, given that听笔补谤补苍迟丑谤辞辫耻蝉鈥櫶�anatomy did not vary much.

鈥淔rankly, I don鈥檛 believe anyone would have predicted such strong regional differences,鈥� Sponheimer told a CU editor. 鈥淏ut this is one of the fun things about science鈥攏ature frequently reminds us that there is much we don鈥檛 yet understand.鈥�

鈥淭he bottom line is that our old answers about hominid diets are no longer sufficient, and we really need to start looking in directions that would have been considered crazy even a decade ago,鈥� he added.

鈥淲e also see much more evidence of dietary variability among our hominid kin than was previously appreciated. Consequently, the whole notion of hominid diet is really problematic, as different species may well have consumed fundamentally different things.鈥�