A new study from Israel postulates that humans evolved as hypercarnivores, creatures who hunted megafauna in bands and primarily ate animals, nose to tail. In case you are interested in the source, here’s one link:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210405113606.htm

This study sought to discover the diet of “stone age” humans using techniques other than observation of modern-day tribes, including examination of artifacts at habitation sites, analyzing DNA, and piecing together anatomical features from ancient bones and teeth. It concluded not only that humans lived well with minimal plant-based foods for millennia, but also that we could do so today, because “evolution remembers.”

Hypercarnivore sounds pretty scary, and the term apex predator also appears, but I had to conclude our species is more goofy than menacing, sort of like those really large dogs that expose their stomachs and wag their tails when approached. We switched away from eating megafauna after we basically killed them all, so we had to switch to smaller animals and add some plants. Ultimately, we had to create agriculture because the only way we would have enough food was if we had it right there with us, under our control. That led of course to self-domestication, reduced brain capacity, inequality, large-scale wars, opera, and TikTok.

Definitely worth it.

Like anyone with a confirmation bias, which is to say, anyone at all, I’m happy to find a science story that reinforces some of the information on the dark nutrition sites I like. But that doesn’t make it true. I have Questions that Are Not Answered.

My main question concerns the timeline, which is given as two million years. Homo sapiens has not been around for two million years. There were several branches of hominids co-existing on Earth as recently as 50,000 years ago, and lots more before that. Most of those branches didn’t become us, and I don’t see why it makes sense to include their data to describe our habits.

My husband thinks all my questions will never be answered, and I should mediate or something instead of being such an inquisitive pest, though I’m sure he would never state it that way. There is some satisfaction in accepting that all of this can never be more than speculation, and peace in accepting that much is not knowable…UNLESS advanced aliens arrive with recordings of our planetary development. That movie will be a global hit.