780,000-Year-Old Food Found Near This Lake Gives Us A Glimpse Into What People Ate Back Then
The diet of early humans has long been considered to be mainly carnivorous, but new research has challenged that popular belief by showing that our ancestors also consumed a wide variety of plant-based foods, particularly starchy ones like cereals, legumes, acorns, and aquatic plants.
In prehistoric diets, plant-based foods have often been overlooked because their remains are not preserved as frequently or as well as animal remains, which show up in the form of bones in the archaeological record.
But in a new study, a team of researchers analyzed 780,000-year-old “starch grains” from plant sources on basalt tools found at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, an archaeological site located along the Jordan River in modern-day Israel.
This site sits on the shores of Hula Lake. It has been a treasure trove for archaeologists who have turned up settlements and fossilized animal remains there.
Starch grains are tiny particles of starch produced by plants. They can be preserved in sediments and soils and on the surfaces of pottery, tools, and other artifacts.
The analysis of starch grains on the tools from the site demonstrated that the hominins who used the site processed a diverse range of plant foods at least 780,000 years ago, which was long before modern humans emerged.
The starch grains originated from acorns, water chestnuts, grass grains, yellow water lily rhizomes, and legume seeds.
These plants are all rich in carbohydrates and would’ve served as an important energy source for prehistoric humans.
The study also revealed the sophisticated techniques that early humans utilized to process plant materials. The basalt tools included anvils and mace-like objects used to crush and crack open plant foods.
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“The diverse plant foods vary in ecological niches, seasonality, and gathering and processing modes,” wrote the authors of the study.
“In contrast to animal foods, wild plants often require long, multi-step processing techniques that involve significant cognitive skills and advanced toolkits to perform. These costs are thought to have hindered how hominins used these foods and delayed their adoption into our diets.”
The systematic tools used for plant processing suggest that our early ancestors possessed advanced cognitive abilities and operated within larger social groups.
Their ability to collect plants from a diverse array of habitats, such as water and land-based environments, showcases a deep knowledge of their surroundings, much like the human connection to nature today. Overall, it is clear that plant-based foods played a far more significant role in the diet of early humans than previously thought.
“Our results further confirm the importance of plant foods in our evolutionary history and highlight the development of complex food-related behaviors,” wrote the authors.
The details of the study were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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