Subject: Re: Food of Early Hominids

From: [email-masked] (SDunavan)
Date: 5 Apr 1995 10:38:16 -0400

> By the late paleolithic mankind was relying on a lot of meat, but I'm
interested in his diet before he >had the ability to effectively hunt
large animals.  The bulk of his diet must have been from plants. 

Well, archaeologists & paleoanthropologists don't really know for sure
(despite popular reconstructions of "Paleolithic diets"), but it seems
that before humans effectively hunted large animals, they caught small
ones (much as chimpanzees catch & eat small monkeys) or scavenged meat &
especially marrow from bones left by other predators.  The idea of "man
the hunter" has been transformed to "man the clever scavenger" in much of
the recent literature.  I've also seen a few articles arguing that
insects/grubs played an important role (yep, just like the Lion King
answer).

As far as plants, since they don't preserve as well as mineralized bones
(fossils) the evidence for plant use is mostly secondary -- mainly in the
form of tooth wear analyses, which tell us these hominids ate tough,
stringy or rough foods (like gritty roots, seeds, etc.) but this doesn't
tell us exactly what plants were eaten.  The articles are like this: 
AUTHORS:   Kay, Richard F. and Grine, Frederick E.
 TITLE:   Early hominid diets from quantitative image analysis of dental
microwear.
 JOURNAL TITLE:  Nature 333:765-8 Jun 23 '88
 SUBJECT DESCRIPTORS:
                 Man, Prehistoric--Food.
                 Teeth, Fossil.
             
Here's a few other articles to chew over:  AUTHORS:  Bower, Bruce.  
TITLE: Early hominid's diet expands.   JOURNAL TITLE:  Science News
141:253 Apr 18 '92;
AUTH?  TITLE:The hard and soft of hominid diets. JOURNAL: Science News
134:14 Jul 2, 1988;  AUTHOR:  Gibbons, Ann.   TITLE:  Extinct hominid did
not veg out.   JOURNAL TITLE:  Science 256:1281 May 29 '92

You might also copy your question to the newsgroup
"sci.anthropology.paleo"  or the mailing list "HUMEVO" which is at: 
[email-masked]

Hope this helps,  Sandy