They ruled out high volume eating as a theory, since the early human's unique facial design wouldn't have been necessary for that. They also found that the individual wasn't well built for processing tough foods. Instead, they think its skull design was optimal for cracking nuts and seeds, spitting out the shells and chewing the soft inner contents. Strait was quick to add, however, that, "these humans may have preferred soft fruits or other types of vegetation when they could get them...so large nuts and seeds may have been foods of last resort." Since the early humans shared habitats with different types of antelope, "it is possible that they could have scavenged meat when they found it" too. The discoveries suggest that the modern human body form evolved, in part, to match what food we could find. Matt Sponheimer, a University of Colorado at Boulder anthropologist, told Discovery News that the study "takes some old ideas and looks at them in new ways, and also makes some bolder interpretive leaps." "This is one among several studies of late that have challenged conventional wisdom about the diets of our fossil kin," Sponheimer added, "and I believe that certain of its claims are likely to prove controversial." Related Links: |
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