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Friday, April 9, 2021
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL Early humans were apex predators who ate mostly meat for a period of two million years, according to a statement released by Tel Aviv University. Miki Ben-Dor and Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University and researcher Raphael Sirtoli reconstructed the Paleolithic diet through an examination of current metabolism, genetics, and physical build, and a variety of scientific disciplines, suggesting that even though human behavior changes rapidly, our bodies evolve slowly. Ben-Dor explained that modern humans have highly acidic stomachs compared to omnivores, which would have provided some protection from harmful bacteria found in old meat. The researchers also claim that modern humans have a larger number of smaller fat cells, similar to other predators. Omnivores, in contrast, have a small number of large fat cells. The modern human genome, they add, allows for the digestion of a diet rich in fats, rather than a diet rich in sugars. Archaeological eviden
During the Stone Age, our ancestors ate only meat
Researchers at Tel Aviv University say only the extinction of larger animals and the decline of animal food sources led humans to consume vegetables.
Photo by Usman Yousaf on Unsplash
Humans were predators for about two million years, introducing vegetation into their diet only when larger animals went extinct and animal food sources declined toward the end of the Stone Age, claims a paper published in the
Yearbook of the American Physical Anthropology Association by archeologists Miki Ben-Dor and Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University, with Raphael Sirtoli of the University of Minho, Portugal.
Mapping the Human Transition from Vegan to Meat Diets
Homo erectus was the first member of our species to dominate the global food chain and become what zoologists call “a hypercarnivore” or “apex predator.” These terms describe mammals with diets where 70 percent of their food was other animals.
Ben-Dor, who is the lead author of the study, wrote in the new paper that the human colon is “77 percent smaller than that of the chimpanzee, while our small intestine is 64 percent longer.” The colon is where energy is extracted from plant fiber and the small intestine is where sugars, proteins and fat are absorbed.