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Research Yields Surprises about Early Human Diets
Teeth Show Fruit Was the Staple
By Boyce Rensberger
May 15, 1979 issue of the New York Times

BALTIMORE - Preliminary studies of fossil teeth have led an anthropologist to the startling suggestion that early human ancestors were not predominantly meat eaters or even eaters of seeds, shoots, leaves or grasses. Nor were they omnivorous. Instead, they appear to have subsisted chiefly on a diet of fruit.

Not until the advent of Homo erectus, the species immediately ancestral to Homo sapiens, is there evidence of the omnivorous diet that is typical of human beings today.

If confirmed, the findings would upset several widely held assumptions about the diet of early hominids, or human-like creatures. It is generally held, for example, that the large, flat-topped molars of the robust forms of Australopithecus were used to grind tough nuts and roots. The smaller form of Australopithecus and a similarly gracile form of true human being called Homo habilis were thought to have been omnivorous, mixing meat with roots, nuts, eggs, shoots and fruit.

"I don't want to make too much of this yet", said Dr. Alan Walker, a Johns Hopkins University anthropologist, who discovered the dental evidence. "But it is quite a surprise."

No Exceptions Found

The sample of teeth studied so far is small - fewer than two dozen representing four major types of hominids - and further analysis could refute the early indications. But, while the sample is small, no exceptions have been found.
  - Every tooth examined from the hominids of the 12-million-year period leading up to Homo erectus appeared to be that of a fruit-eater.
  - Every Homo erectus tooth was that of an omnivore. Homo erectus was the first form of human being known to have migrated out of Africa. Specimens have been found in many parts of Africa and Asia.

The findings are based on extremely detailed analysis of the microscopic wear patterns on the chewing surfaces of the teeth. The method, which Dr. Walker invented, uses a scanning electronic microscope to see scratches and pits that are invisible to the naked eye.

Dr. Walker has found that different kinds of food contain materials that mar the enamel surface of a tooth in characteristic ways. It is possible even to distinguish between a grass-eater and a leaf-eater because each food contains characteristic types and quantities of silica crystals that form naturally within plant cells. These crystals, called phytoliths, are harder than tooth enamel and scratch it slightly as the animal chews its food.

Grasses contain a much higher proportion of phytoliths than do leaves of bushes and trees. Fruits contain almost none at all. As a result, fruit eaters' teeth are highly polished, lacking any of the wear patterns characteristic of other food sources. Meats contain no phytoliths but the teeth of carnivores show scratches caused by crunching into bone.

Consistent Patterns of Wear

Using the teeth of various living mammals whose diets are known, Dr. Walker has established that the basic pattern of microwear on teeth is fairly consistent from one species to another. This is largely because tooth enamel is essentially the same substance throughout the animal kingdom.

To prove his method, Dr. Walker has compared the microwear patterns on closely related species of animals that are known to have different feeding habits. For example, of two closely related species of hyrax (rodent-sized hooved mammals sometimes called conies), one feeds predominantly on grass while the other is a browser, eating leaves of bushes and trees. Their teeth can be told apart easily using a scanning electronic microscope.

Dr. Walker has established similar patterns in the various types of wild pig, such as warthog, and among a number of monkeys and apes. It is against these patterns that the hominid teeth are checked.

To examine teeth with the scanning electron microscope, Dr. Walker must mount the tooth crowns on metal stubs that will hold them inside the microscope's vacuum chamber and then coat the crown with a gold palladium alloy that reflects the instrument's electronic beam. (It is the reflected electron beam that the microscope detects and manipulates electronically to enlarge the image and display it on a special television screen.) Hominid teeth are considered priceless relics and are not handed out by their discoverers to be treated this way, not even to Alan Walker, who is a close colleague of many of the leading finders of hominid fossils. Therefore, Dr. Walker developed a method of making replicas of the teeth by casting them in epoxy. The method does not alter the fossil but does pick up all the microscopic detail needed to make the analysis.

If it is true that the earliest hominids were all predominantly fruit eaters, the fact would suggest a way of life more like that of chimpanzees living in forests than most anthropologists had suspected.

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Note: DNA-wise, humans more closely resemble the Bonobo monkey than they do the Chimpanzee, and the difference between these two monkeys are striking, including dietary preferences and social behavior.

And regarding the conflicting information that has been circulated since the above information first appeared, please keep this in mind: Humans are the only animal that can come up with evidence to support a closely held belief which, in reality, is untrue. Some people who have a vested interest in perpetuating the "we're meant to eat meat" information, and those who simply prefer to believe that this is the case, go to great lengths to discredit honest information and to give credibility to their point of view sacrificing honesty and accuracy for personal preference and profit motives. It is unfortunate that these campaigns do nothing more than confuse the issue and make it difficult for many people to get at the truth.

So, yes, we were at one time "hunter/gatherers", and many people refer to this behavior as if that had been the way it had always been. But we were foragers before we were hunter/gatherers, just like our closest primate cousins. We didn't need tools to eat, and we didn't need to chase or trap our food, it just sat their waiting for us to consume it, and we were in good enough shape to climb to get some of it. Today about the only thing many of us are capable of climbing is the corporate ladder; to climb even a flight of stairs would sideline some people. To be as healthy as you are capable of being, you need to give heed to the Natural Laws that pertain to health.

Recommended Reading:

The Fallacy of the Benefits of Eating Raw Animal Foods
Why Most Diets Don't Work
The Benefits of Eating Uncooked Foods
Raw Foods - What People Don't Know
Raw Food Studies
Why Eat Raw Plant-based Foods?
Healthful, Raw-food Trend is Picking Up Steam - USA TODAY
How to Have the BEST Odds of Avoiding Degenerative Disease

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