Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.What did people in the Stone Age eat before the advent of farming around 10,000 years ago? A long-held stereotype — one that’s influenced modern fad diets — is that ancient humans hunted large animals and chowed down on mammoth steak.But new research on a Paleolithic group called the Iberomaurusians, hunter-gatherers who buried their dead in Taforalt cave in what’s now Morocco between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago, is adding to a growing body of evidence that challenges the notion human ancestors predominantly relied on meat, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.Scientists analyzed chemical signatures preserved in bones and teeth belonging to at least seven different Iberomaurusians and found that plants, not meat, were their primary source of dietary protein.A human tooth unearthed from Taforalt Cave in Morocco shows severe wear and caries, or cavities. – Heiko Temming“Our analysis showed that these hunter-gatherer groups, they included an important amount of plant matter, wild plants to their diet, which changed our understanding of the diet of pre-agricultural populations,” said lead study author Zineb Moubtahij, a doctoral student at Géosciences Environnement Toulouse, a research institute in France, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.The share of plant resources as a source of dietary protein in the humans whose remains were studied was similar to that seen in early farmers from the Levant, the present-day Eastern Mediterranean countries where plant domestication and farming were first documented.Researchers also spotted a higher number of tooth cavities among the Taforalt specimens than is typically seen with hunter-gatherer remains of that period. The evidence suggested that the Iberomaurusians consumed “fermentable starchy plants” such as wild cereals or acorns, according to the study. The findings raise some intriguing questions about h …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnSign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.What did people in the Stone Age eat before the advent of farming around 10,000 years ago? A long-held stereotype — one that’s influenced modern fad diets — is that ancient humans hunted large animals and chowed down on mammoth steak.But new research on a Paleolithic group called the Iberomaurusians, hunter-gatherers who buried their dead in Taforalt cave in what’s now Morocco between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago, is adding to a growing body of evidence that challenges the notion human ancestors predominantly relied on meat, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.Scientists analyzed chemical signatures preserved in bones and teeth belonging to at least seven different Iberomaurusians and found that plants, not meat, were their primary source of dietary protein.A human tooth unearthed from Taforalt Cave in Morocco shows severe wear and caries, or cavities. – Heiko Temming“Our analysis showed that these hunter-gatherer groups, they included an important amount of plant matter, wild plants to their diet, which changed our understanding of the diet of pre-agricultural populations,” said lead study author Zineb Moubtahij, a doctoral student at Géosciences Environnement Toulouse, a research institute in France, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.The share of plant resources as a source of dietary protein in the humans whose remains were studied was similar to that seen in early farmers from the Levant, the present-day Eastern Mediterranean countries where plant domestication and farming were first documented.Researchers also spotted a higher number of tooth cavities among the Taforalt specimens than is typically seen with hunter-gatherer remains of that period. The evidence suggested that the Iberomaurusians consumed “fermentable starchy plants” such as wild cereals or acorns, according to the study. The findings raise some intriguing questions about h …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
