Mankind has been the apex predator of the food chain for two million years
A new study through more than 400 scientific treatises reveals that modern human ancestors were once the apex predators on Earth for two million years.
The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene --Ben-Dor --- American Journal of Physical Anthropology --Wiley Online Library
Humans Were Actually Apex Predators For 2 Million Years, New Study Finds
Humans were apex predators for two million years | EurekAlert! Science News
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-04/tu-hwa040421.php
The research was conducted by Miki Bendall and Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University, Israel, and Rafael Sirtori of the University of Minho, Portugal.
Previous attempts to restore the Stone Age diet were based on comparisons with hunter-gatherer life in the 20th century. However, Dr. Bendall and his colleagues thought that it was not possible to make a simple comparison due to changes in the entire ecosystem, and tried to restore the dietary habits of those days from the traces left on the human body.
First of all, because the stomach was highly acidic, it is thought that human beings at that time were carnivorous. This is because the fact that a large amount of energy is required to produce and maintain strongly acidic substances is evidence of ingestion of animal foods. It is also thought that the high acidity of the stomach was to protect the body from harmful bacteria contained in the meat.
Another reason that is thought to have been carnivorous is the structure of fat cells in the body. In omnivorous animals, fat is stored in a relatively small number of large adipocytes, but in carnivorous animals like humans, there are a large number of small adipocytes. This can also be confirmed from the genome.
Furthermore, research on stable isotopes contained in human bones and hunting methods conducted in the field of archeology shows that humans specialized in hunting medium-sized and large animals. Given that modern large animal predators derive more than 70% of their energy from hunting targets, it is believed that humans were 'super carnivores' specializing in large animal hunting.
Below is a graph of the evolution of human nutritional levels in the Pleistocene by Bendall et al. The numbers are lined up from left to right to 137, each representing one mammalian species, sorted in descending order of relative plant consumption. In other words, the one on the left is herbivorous, and the one on the right is carnivorous. From early humans that is the 'E. hominins' in the graph 'H. habilis ( Homo habilis )', 'H. Erectus ( Homo erectus ),' and more and more intake of animal food will increase, this It has been shown that the intake of vegetable foods will increase again after peaking at.
The decrease in animal food intake is thought to be due to the decrease in large animals around the world, after which humans are thought to have domesticated both plants and animals and turned them into 'farmers.' I will.
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