In the Paleolithic Era Ipeople Spend Time Searching Food but Art and

Footing stones were a 'major evolutionary success' as they allowed people to unlock the energy in plants by making flour. Image credit - José-Manuel Benito Álvarez/Wikimedia eatables, licenced under CC By-SA ii.five

Early cavern paintings of hunting scenes may give the impression our Stone Age ancestors lived mainly on chunks of meat, only plants – and the ability to unlock the glucose inside – were only as primal to their survival.

Plants rich in starch helped early on humans to thrive even at the pinnacle of the last Ice Historic period, researchers say.

While the prove effectually meat eating is articulate, the role of constitute foods is less understood. Animal basic can last millions of years and still bear witness cuts made by human butchering tools, whereas almost all plant remains disintegrate.

Simply new studies into the remains of plants that do exist are uncovering why and how our ancestors ate them.

'Plants were the staples. They were the foods that formed the basis of our calories in nigh environments,' said Dr Amanda Henry, a paleobiologist and associate professor at Leiden Academy in the Netherlands.

Tubers and cereals are full of starch – making them practiced sources of glucose, which is important for encephalon growth as well as energy, says Dr Henry. She leads a project called HARVEST which is studying the diets of early human species and the role of plants as food. Tubers are organs where plants shop nutrients – modern examples include potatoes and yams.

Some of the earliest evidence she found of eating tubers and cereals dates dorsum 40,000 years, to the Paleolithic era. Neanderthal remains discovered in caves in Iraq and Belgium evidence that our cousins likely ate water lily tubers, and grains from relatives of wheat and barley grasses.

Innovation

But unlocking the energy in them required innovation. The grains may have been eaten dark-green when they are easier to assimilate, but many tubers are toxic raw, says Dr Henry.

'They are likely to have cooked them,' said Dr Henry. This non merely releases energy merely also makes tubers safe to eat.

'(We've constitute) evidence of heating food in the presence of h2o which suggests they were humid them,' said Dr Henry. 'Changes in the starch granules – which suggests this type of cooking – were found on the dental calculus (tartar).'

The Neanderthal remains indicate they ate a wide variety of institute foods. This throws doubt on a theory that they died out considering they had a narrower nutrition than our direct ancestors, Dr Henry says.

Other researchers have found earlier evidence of cooked tubers from Due south Africa in a fireplace dating back more than than 100,000 years.

During the concluding glacial period when ice caps expanded to cover much of northern Europe, there was an explosion of a new technology driven past the demand for processing new sources of plant food: the ground stone.

It was a major evolutionary success, dating back well-nigh xxx,000 years, says Dr Emanuela Cristiani, associate professor in prehistoric archeology at Sapienza University of Rome, Italian republic.

Hunter-gatherers primarily used knapped tools, made from big pieces of stone, says Dr Cristiani. 'At a certain point another engineering science appears like a boom which is the ground rock engineering … (It was) non used to cutting or scrape or pierce, but to grind fabric,' she said.

'It means people were … looking for new means to swallow during this dramatic climatic catamenia,' she said.

'A lot of Paleo diets talk about health, but by this they hateful weight loss. And I tin't recall of a unmarried human antecedent who wanted to lose weight.'

Through a project called HIDDEN FOODS, Dr Cristiani is studying diets of humans in southeastern Europe from the belatedly Paleolithic era – when they were hunter-gathers – to the Neolithic era, when in that location is the commencement evidence of farming in the region almost 8,500 years ago. She is too exploring the evolution of institute food processing technologies.

Flour

Grinding meant people could make flour, which is some other way of unlocking the energy in plants. The squad found evidence in ground stones and plant remains in dental calculus that hunter-gatherers in the central Balkans ate a lot of wild oats, legumes and acorn flour, says Dr Cristiani.

The earliest bear witness of flour dates back 30,000 years and was institute in Russia, the Czech Commonwealth and Italy.

It is probable that hunter-gatherers at the team'due south Italian research site ate cattail plants, which are abundant in a nearby river.

'We call back they used more often than not roots. The plant's root is very rich in starch and once it's dried, you lot can make information technology into flour,' said Dr Cristiani. The flour makes a sweet-tasting bread, she adds.

Cave paintings often describe hunting activities only plants were the staple food for Stone Age people, say researchers. Epitome credit - Gruban/wikimedia eatables, licenced nether CC By-SA 2.0

Paleolithic

The average Paleolithic person who survived infancy seems to have lived to age 50 or lx. 'Information technology wasn't a life of luxury, information technology was probably a lot of work and generally cold, requiring quite a chip of effort,' said Dr Henry.

These early humans are likely to accept died primarily from a combination of infections, parasites and physical trauma, she says.

In one case people started settling and rearing animals and crops, affliction levels rose – mainly because they jumped from animals to humans – and life expectancy appears to have fallen. 'That being said, agriculture is associated with increase in population size. You're non living as long, but you're having more kids,' said Dr Henry.

Today, some people seeking a healthy alternative to modern industrialised diets look to the eating styles of our hunter-gatherer ancestors for inspiration.

The and so-called Paleo diet eschews cereals, recommends few carbs and promotes meat and vegetables. But archaeologists say it does non correspond the full diet of hunter-gatherers who ate cereals and relied on carbohydrates.

Subconscious FOODS researchers found remains of legumes, oats and acorns in ten,000-twelvemonth-sometime teeth from the last hunter-gatherer groups who built villages along the Danube river. 'This shows our idea of a Paleo diet every bit primarily based on poly peptide intake is completely wrong,' said Dr Cristiani.

'It's important to understand for real what the (ancient) Paleolithic diet was. It was a very balanced way of eating,' she said.

Hunter-gatherers were looking for calories, then carbohydrates in tubers and cereals would have been important.

'A lot of Paleo diets talk nearly health, but past this they hateful weight loss. And I can't think of a unmarried human ancestor who wanted to lose weight,' said Dr Henry.

Diversity was integral to people's diets, as was their ability to move to new regions. 'Constitute foods vary a lot between environments. So, every time a man went to a new place, they had to learn what was edible, what was going to kill them and what was medicine,' she said. 'There is no one size fits all nutrition. Anyone who tells yous differently is trying to sell you something.'

The research in this article was funded past the EU's European Enquiry Council. If you lot liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.

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Source: https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/how-stone-age-humans-unlocked-glucose-plants