If you talk to anybody about eating, you are likely to hear something about the Paleo diet. It is a diet that is supposedly based on the way human ancestors ate a long time ago. For the most part, it is meat-based.
Scientists have often debated the way that people wait and even many other factors about our history. Recently, a study called into question the basis of the Paleo diet, and it has people wondering.
The Harvard School Of Public Health considered the way our ancestors may have eaten. They looked to the types of tools they used and figured they weren’t advanced enough to cultivate plants. That is why they felt that our ancestors may have eaten meat, fish, and other proteins.
There is a new study out, however, published by the Nature Ecology & Evolution Journal that shows how the hunter-gatherers in the late Stone Age may have actually eaten more of a plant-based diet.
They looked at an area in Morocco which is one of the oldest burial grounds in North America. The scientists studied the remains and chemical signatures from the Paleolithic era using teeth and bones. They then used a method known as stable isotope analysis.
That type of analysis charts nitrogen in the tooth enamel. They think that meat was not the primary source of protein during that time.
Rather, humans at that time got the majority of their protein from food sources such as acorns, and pine nuts. They felt that those protein sources made up a significant part of their diet.
The lead author of the study said: “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.”
In addition, researchers looked into the cavities where human remains were buried in caves. The study showed that the cavities were indicative of the consumption of fermentable starchy plants, such as corn and beets.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the study is that the population developed ways to cultivate plants and harvest crops before the agricultural revolution. It also showed that the people of that time took part in plain cultivation, such as intentionally planting and harvesting wild cereals.
In conclusion, the study emphasized the ‘importance of the population’s dietary reliance on plants, while animal resources were consumed in a lower proportion than at other Upper Palaeolithic sites with available isotopic data.’
Additional research will be done to look further into this new finding.