Publication Date:
1999-01-15
Description:
Current consensus holds that the 3-million-year-old hominid Australopithecus africanus subsisted on fruits and leaves, much as the modern chimpanzee does. Stable carbon isotope analysis of A. africanus from Makapansgat Limeworks, South Africa, demonstrates that this early hominid ate not only fruits and leaves but also large quantities of carbon-13-enriched foods such as grasses and sedges or animals that ate these plants, or both. The results suggest that early hominids regularly exploited relatively open environments such as woodlands or grasslands for food. They may also suggest that hominids consumed high-quality animal foods before the development of stone tools and the origin of the genus Homo.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Sponheimer, M -- Lee-Thorp, J A -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1999 Jan 15;283(5400):368-70.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉M. Sponheimer, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ 08901-1414, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9888848" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Analysis of Variance
;
Animals
;
Carbon Isotopes/*analysis
;
Dental Enamel/*chemistry
;
Diet/*history
;
History, Ancient
;
*Hominidae
;
Humans
;
Meat/history
;
*Paleodontology
;
Plants, Edible
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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