Meat or potatoes? reevaluating the role of plant foods in human evolution

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Title Meat or potatoes? reevaluating the role of plant foods in human evolution
Publication Type dissertation
School or College College of Social & Behavioral Science
Department Anthropology
Author Leonard, Chelsea A.
Date 2015
Description The role of plant foods in human evolution is largely ignored in the literature. The archaeological visibility of early hominin meat consumption, compelling ethnographic accounts of large game hunting, and recent trends in nutritional science all highlight the potential importance of animal foods in hominin diets. As a result, the nutritional contributions of plant foods remain under-explored. Ethnographic observations suggest that plants are a critical resource for mid- and low-latitude foragers. Paleoanthropologists concede that hominins were reliant on plants to some degree, but the role of meat consumption in driving changes in brain and body size in the hominin lineage are taken for granted. In the second chapter of this dissertation, I discuss human physiological requirements for specific macronutrients, and argue that meat is not a necessary dietary constituent. I present data on the plant contributions to the diet of Twe forager-horticulturalists, and examine the macronutrient and amino acid composition of common Twe plant foods. In the third chapter, I focus on the nutritional qualities of plant underground storage organs and discuss how they compare to animal foods in terms of nutritional composition and procurement effort. In the final chapter, I discuss the archaeological visibility of plant foods and assess the reliability of starch granules and phytoliths in dental calculus in recording Twe plant consumption.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject dental calculus; foragers; human evolution; nutrition
Dissertation Name Doctor of Philosophy
Language eng
Rights Management ©Chelsea A. Leonard
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
ARK ark:/87278/s6kq274g
Setname ir_etd
ID 1355501
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6kq274g
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