Did Eating Meat Make Us Human? Don't Be So Sure, New Study Says

[Judi Lynn]

By Stephen Luntz
24 JAN 2022, 20:00

Some anthropologists have noted early evidence of meat-eating around the time Homo erectus evolved, which sported an exceptionally large brain for a creature of its size. The apparent correlation between these events has led both experts and ordinary observers to endorse the “Meat made us human” hypothesis. However, a reanalysis of these sites casts doubt on these conclusions, showing the association may be an illusion based on biased site sampling.

The idea that large brains need animal protein (and a few micro-nutrients) to grow is so beguiling that the Australian Meat and Livestock industry ran a major campaign on it, fronted by Sam Neill fresh from playing Jurassic Park paleontologist Alan Grant.

Inevitably, vegetarians questioned the tagline of “Red Meat – We Were Meant To Eat It”. Now, a paper in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences reveals that the campaign's critics may have been right all along.

“Generations of paleoanthropologists have gone to famously well-preserved sites in places like Olduvai Gorge looking for — and finding — breathtaking direct evidence of early humans eating meat, furthering this viewpoint that there was an explosion of meat eating after 2 million years ago,” lead author Dr Andrew Barr of George Washington University said in a statement.

More:
https://www.iflscience.com/brain/did-eating-meat-make-us-human-dont-be-so-sure-new-study-says/