A unique hominin menu dated to 1.95 million years ago

Abstract

Research on ancient foragers has tended to focus on their acquisition of large land mammals, but our ancestors in fact exploited a wider range of taxa. Depending on the local environment, this range included tortoises, birds, and hares from terrestrial habitats and mollusks, birds, and fish from aquatic habitats. These small terrestrial animals and aquatic species begin to appear occasionally in the archaeological record during the Middle Pleistocene (<780,000 y ago), occur irregularly until the Late Pleistocene (<130,000 y ago), and are abundant only within the past few tens of thousands of years (1–6). However, the exploitation of these resources in the Plio-Pleistocene has been difficult to detect because relevant samples are rare and have not always been studied in sufficient detail. Recent information on excavations at the 1.95 million-year-old Oldowan site of FwJJ20 in the East Turkana Basin of northern Kenya, published in PNAS, helps fill the void, and research shows that at least some early hominins, enjoyed a varied diet, including aquatic species that were typical of the well-watered surroundings of the site (7). This work highlights the opportunistic nature of early hominin foraging and the importance of sampling as many paleo-habitats as possible as well as the need for thorough analyses of all excavated animal remains.