One of the anthropological doubts that researchers are trying to unravel is, when exactly did man start hunting? When we begin to be dependent on consumption of meat? A recent discovery has confirmed the hypothesis that more than 1.5 million years ago the first hominids in Africa were already hunters.
In the Olduvai Gorge, in Tanzania, better known as ” the cradle of humanity “, fossil remains of a child who lived there about 1.5 million years ago have been discovered. Conducting various investigations, the team from the Institute of Evolution in Africa (IDEA), has confirmed that he had bone problems related to anemia. Basically, the individual less than two years old presented porotic hyperostosis derived from the lack of consumption of vitamins B9 and B12 , which are incorporated through meat, which supports the theory that human ancestors of that time already depended on consumption of meat to survive.
In fact, anthropologists’ analyzes have determined that he probably died during weaning, when children had to include new foods in the diet. The lack of meat caused, according to the article published in the journal PLOS ONE , that the mother did not consume enough meat, which had an impact on the quality of the milk and finally on the health of the child.
This finding does not end the eternal debate about whether the first hominids were scavengers or hunters, but it does shed some light on when man began to be dependent on meat. In fact, there are 2.6 million-year-old deposits that show stone utensils created by man to cut meat and even marks on animal bones that would show this ability to get these foods.
