Scientists have reconstructed the dietary habits of one North African culture, surprisingly documenting that the diet of ancient people who were previously thought to be active meat eaters consisted of plants, according to a study published April 29 in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Due to the lack of well-preserved human remains from this period, the diet of people who lived before the advent of agriculture has been poorly studied. But now scientists have reconstructed the dietary characteristics of one of these North African crops, documenting that their diet mainly consisted of plants.
Experts studied the chemical features in the bones and teeth of the remains of seven people, as well as individual teeth, the antiquity of which was about 15 thousand years ago, found in a cave near the Taforalt grotto in northeastern Morocco. These people were part of the so-called Iberomaurian culture.
The analysis revealed substances such as carbon, nitrogen, zinc, sulfur and strontium in these remains, and also revealed the type and amount of plants and meat that ancient people ate. The excavation site yielded remains of a variety of edible wild plants, including sweet acorns, pine nuts, pistachios, oats and legumes.
“The prevailing view was that hunter-gatherer diets consisted primarily of animal proteins. However, the data from Taforalt shows that plants formed a significant part of the diet of hunter-gatherers,” writes Zineb Mubtahij, a doctoral student in archeology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and lead author of the study.
Iberomaurus were hunter-gatherers who inhabited parts of Morocco and Libya. They used wild plants that ripened at different times of the year, and the decay on their teeth indicated that they ate plants containing starch.
Scientists also noted that instead of eating healthy greens and colorful vegetables, ancient ancestors ate starchy foods – grains, nuts and legumes. Previous research suggested that humans became addicted to starch much later, when agriculture was invented about 8,000 years ago.
High levels of glucose in starch may have paved the way for the development of the human brain, allowing humans to become the dominant species on Earth.
“Interestingly, our findings showed minimal evidence of seafood or freshwater food consumption among these ancient groups. It appears that these people introduced wild plants into their infants' diets at an earlier stage than previously thought,” Mubtahij added.
Among the seven people whose remains were examined were two infants. By comparing the chemical composition of an infant's tooth formed during breastfeeding with the composition of bone tissue, which reflects the diet shortly before death, the researchers identified changes in the child's diet over time. The findings indicate that children begin eating solid foods around 12 months of age, and weaning occurs earlier than expected in a pre-agricultural society.
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