Meat Made Us Human

Abstract

Abstract The role of meat in the evolution of hominin diet and behavior is controversial. During the later reign of the “Man the Hunter” paradigm, fossil and archaeological evidence from Plio Pleistocene localities in southern and eastern Africa seemed at face value to corroborate significant involvement with meat and hunting early in human evolution (Dart, 1957; Isaac, 1971; Leakey, 1971). Leakey and Isaac interpreted the archaeological evidence as generally reminiscent of the behavioral adaptations of human foragers. Isaac (1971, 1978) attributed to Plio Pleistocene Homo a humanlike adaptation for the procurement and consumption of meat, including genderbased division of labor, food transport, and food sharing, which he called the homebase, or central-place model. Given the lingering image of Man the Hunter, it is perhaps unsurprising that these findings were challenged. If males usually provide the meat in foraging societies, and if meat was pivotal in the evolution of human diet and behavior, then what was the contribution of females? Alternative models based on analogies to nonhuman primates defined a significant role for females, particularly for australopithecines predating the known archaeological record (e.g., Zihlman and Tanner, 1978).