Three Million Years Ago, Our Ancestors Ate Plants, Not Mammals

New Evidence from Fossilized Teeth Challenges the Role of Meat in Early Hominin Diets

The image of our ancient ancestors as hunters feasting on mammalian prey has long shaped our understanding of human evolution. But new research¹ from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the University of the Witwatersrand suggests that Australopithecus, a pivotal member of the human lineage that lived 3.5 million years ago, primarily relied on a plant-based diet.

One of the teeth from seven Australopithecus individuals that got drilled so a small amount of tooth enamel could be analyzed for evidence of meat consumption. Tina Lüdecke