evans@mhuxt.UUCP (crandall) (08/10/85)
My,my, don't folks have some strange ideas about diet and evolution. Okay,
let's start in the Paleocene and Eocene with the first members of Order
Primates. From their teeth the typical diet was largely insects but we can
probably expect some omnivorous inclusion of sap and vegetation. As time and
teeth progress omnivory is strongly indicated with vegetation being the
primary dietary component. By this I do not mean mature leaves such as
those eatten by the leaf monkeys, but tender vegetation: fruits (probably
why sugar is such an attractive thing for us), shoots, young foliage,seeds,
etc. Time marches on and we reach the hay-day of apes, the Miocene. It was
then that we can expect the start of the T-complex (Theropithecus complex)
which is a set of physical characteristics reflecting the eatting of grains.
Just as our incisor shapes show the importance of fruit in out background
so do we see a great history of gramnivory (pasta urges) in our rounded
tooth rows, shallow faces, thick enamal, and wide molars "designed" for
grinding. Meat, except for insects is probably a very, very recent part of
our diet. Chimps certainly eat some, and they relish it, but it a rare
component of the diet. It would not be outragous to expect a similar percent-
age for the Australopithecines along our line and for early Homo. Current
gatherer-hunter (a more correct order for the moniker) have about three
quarters vegetation and the rest meat. Interestingly, Homo sapiens neander-
thalensis may have had a higher percentage of meat during glacial incursions
which would be understandable due to the increased need of fat and the lack
of vegetation. Meat included in our diets may play a part in our being as
tall as we are, but big deal, over 6'8" our bodies become terribly inefficient.
Sukie Crandall (long live primatology)lj@ewj01.UUCP (Leonard Jacobs) (08/13/85)
> > My,my, don't folks have some strange ideas about diet and evolution. Okay, > let's start in the Paleocene and Eocene with the first members of Order > Primates. From their teeth the typical diet was largely insects but we can Fascinating information. But shouldn't you really be posting this to net.med? These are the people who posed the possibility that homo sapiens evolved as a result of meat eating! -- Len Jacobs East West Journal harvard!bbnccv!ewj01!lj