Just 84 tiny adult teeth found in eight sites in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula have been enough to reveal the varied diet of the human groups that lived in prehistoric Catalonia in a period between 7,000 and 3,600 years ago.
Experts from the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH) explain in an article published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology that agropastoral groups ranging from the Middle Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age enjoyed a mixed diet composed of the regular use of both cereals and meat and milk.
The team led by Raquel Hernando has used a technique known as microwear to analyze the surface of the teeth found in Cova de l’Avi (Vallirana), Cova de Can Sadurní (Begues), Cova de la Guineu (Font-Rubí ), Cova Foradada (Calafell), Cova del Trader (Cubelles), Roc de les Orenetes (Queralbs), Cova del Gigant (Sitges) and Cova dels Galls Carboners (Mont-ral).
“We have observed that these dietary practices evolved and specialized in response to specific cultural, environmental, economic and technological components of each community,” says Hernando after comparing the microscopic features (streaks and dimples) caused by the chewing process.
The northeast of the Iberian Peninsula was characterized, more than 5,000 years ago, by a series of sociocultural, technological and demographic changes at different rates that have offered a “perfect scenario” to experts to study how the diet of these groups evolved.
“The origins and subsequent intensification of Neolithic production economies (which left behind the ‘predatory economy’ of hunter-gatherers to move on to the development of agriculture and livestock) contributed to broad transformations,” concludes the main author of the study. .
Since the Stone Age, which began about three million years ago and ended about 40,000 years ago, hunters pursued large prey with spears, atlatls, bows and arrows. But they also depended on another deadly weapon that is often overlooked: our own legs.
Before the Neolithic revolution, which took place about 10,000 years ago and agriculture developed, large game hunting such as antelope, elk and even kangaroos was much more widespread than previously thought, researchers from Trent University highlight in a study. article published in the journal Nature Human Behavior.
Experts have documented almost 400 cases of resistance chases (following a prey constantly until exhaustion) by indigenous peoples around the world between the 16th and 21st centuries. And it seems that in some cases it is more effective than stealth stalking.
“Humans have two characteristics rare in mammals: our locomotor muscles are dominated by fatigue-resistant fibers, and we effectively dissipate through sweat the metabolic heat generated by high and prolonged activity,” write Eugene Morin and Bruce Winterhalder, the authors. of the study.
For decades, some anthropologists have argued that drag racing was one of the first hunting techniques employed by early African hominids. This system would have shaped many unique human characteristics, including our springy, arched feet, slow-twitch muscle fibers optimized for efficiency, or bare skin that gives off heat.
Morin and Winterhaldes spent five years examining more than 8,000 texts spanning some 500 years, where the earliest accounts of missionaries, travelers and explorers described long-distance races and tracking. 81% of Native American groups practiced, for example, some form of persistent hunting.
Archaeologists concluded that, throughout history, there were times when running, although it costs more energy than walking, was more efficient than silently stalking prey because it allows for a faster kill and a better return on time. invested.
The authors describe hunting a Cape oryx (Oryx gazella), a large antelope from southern Africa. Walking, a hunter can chase prey for 2 hours and cover eight kilometers before killing it. By accelerating the chase by jogging to 10 kilometers per hour (a speed reached by many amateur runners), the prey can be driven to exhaustion in just 24 minutes, which would result in a reward five times greater in calories gained per time invested.
When hunting faster prey, we humans can rely on our unusual ability to run at a constant pace for hours and stay cool by sweating, even over rocky, sandy, snowy, wet terrain… An expert tracker can force a prey that run faster into a relentless cycle of running, overheating, exhaustion and eventual collapse, and then finishing off the animal with a knockout blow delivered with a spear or club, they say.
