Stony Brook, NY, January 22, 2025 – An international team of researchers also included Dominic Stratford, PhDs from Stony Brook University and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa have discovered that an ancient human ancestor was found in deposits in the Sterkfontein Caves, australopithecusWho lived in South Africa more than three million years ago, ate a primarily plant-based diet. The findings, published in the journal ScienceStemming from the analysis of tooth enamel from seven australopithecus The fossil is important because the emergence of meat eating is thought to be the main driver of the large increase in brain size seen in later hominins.
Every human behavior, from abstract thought to the development of complex technology, is the result of the development of the brain. According to evolutionary scientists, meat consumption is the primary driver of many aspects of the evolution of our own lineage, HomosexualWhich also includes the size of the brain. A major question in human evolution studies is when hominins began to exploit and consume highly nutritious animal products as this represents a turning point in our evolution. However, direct evidence of when our early ancestors began eating meat and how its consumption evolved over time has remained elusive to scientists.
The research team included investigators from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) and the University of the Witwatersrand in Germany. They analyzed stable nitrogen isotope data (15n/14n) from tooth enamel australopithecus Fossils found in caves, the area is known for its rich collection of early hominin fossils.
The ratio of stable nitrogen isotopes deposited in animal tissue has been used for many years to understand its trophic position – place in the food chain. a promotion of 15N is generally indicative of higher position in the food chain and consumption of animal tissue. Traditionally, a sample of bone collagen or dentin is taken to obtain sufficient nitrogen isotopes for analysis. But these tissues typically decay relatively rapidly, limiting the application of nitrogen isotope analysis to about 300,000 years.
Recent development of more sensitive analytical techniques that measure trace amounts of nitrogen has provided the opportunity to sample enamel, the hardest tissue in the mammalian body that also traps stable isotopes of nitrogen as it forms. The enamel can potentially preserve the isotopic fingerprint of an animal’s diet for millions of years.
According to Stratford, an adjunct lecturer in the department of anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook University, and director of research at the Sterkfontein Caves, and his colleagues, this advance in nitrogen isotope analysis enabled researchers to obtain for the first time a detailed description of nitrogen isotopes. Direct evidence of the diet of ancient hominin fossils and the discovery of when meat eating began, a behavior that set hominins on a new evolutionary path.
They compared isotopic data from those fossils with tooth samples from other animals that coexisted at the time, such as monkeys, antelope, hyenas, jackals and big cats. The comparison showed that it is possible australopithecus Although meat was occasionally consumed, its primary diet was plant-based.
In fact, isotopic data have shown that hominins ate more like herbivores than carnivores. Stratford explains that one explanation for this result is that changes in behavior are known to occur australopithecus This may not be a result of increased meat consumption. It may also suggest that regular meat eating had not yet emerged as a behavior in this old hominin, meaning it only happened at a later time, or in a different geographic area.
“Overall, this work provides clear evidence that australopithecus “Meat was not eaten in significant quantities in South Africa until three million years ago, and this represents a major step forward in increasing our ability to better understand the diets and trophic levels of all animals on a scale of millions of years,” Stratford says. Is.”
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