The meat of the matter: an evolutionary perspective on human carnivory

Abstract

ABSTRACTNatural selection, as both a process and a scientific concept, is eloquently simple. Unfortunately, this simplicity sometimes belies Darwin’s broader view of evolution as a multifaceted process that proceeds from both ecological pressures and phylogenetic history. Darwin further understood that it is not just physical traits that are transmitted generationally, but also behavioural patterns, both of which are subject to the shaping influences of environment and phylogeny. Chimpanzees, bonobos and humans are the most carnivorous extant primates, an observation that serves as the basis of our extended argument that vertebrate predation is a synapomorphy of these sister taxa. From there, we use archaeological data to trace the inferred polarity of hominin carcass foraging and meat-eating from their first archaeological indications ∼2.6 million years ago (Mya). A review of the early Pleistocene African record demonstrates that taphonomic evidence of a hominin predatory/meat-eating behavioral module clarifies ∼2.0 Mya, a critical time period characterised by traces of advanced carcass foraging, which, in turn, suggest that an earlier phase(s) of vertebrate capture by hominins was/were simpler. In rounding out this meta-analytical consideration of hominin carnivory, we draw on comparative primatology, ecology and archaeology in order to build a holistic model of this fundamental behavioural adaptation.