Several recent studies have stressed the role of dietary change in the origin and early evolution of our genus in Africa. Resulting models have been based on nutrition research and analogy to living peoples and nonhuman primates or on archeological and paleoenvironmental evidence. Here we evaluate these models in the context of the hominin fossil record. Inference of diet from fossils is hampered by small samples, unclear form-function relationships, taphonomic factors, and interactions between cultural and natural selection. Nevertheless, craniodental remains of Homo habilis, H. rudolfensis, and H. erectus offer some clues. For example, there appears to be no simple transition from an australopith to a Homo grade of dietary adaptation, or from closed forest plant diets to reliance on more open-country plants or animals. Early Homo species more likely had adaptations for flexible, versatile subsistence strategies that would have served them well in the variable paleoenvironments of the African Plio-Pleistocene.
Over the past few years, scholars have paid increased attention to the evolution of diet in the Plio-Pleistocene hominins of Africa, especially the earliest members of our genus, Homo rudolfensis, H. habilis, and H. erectus. Resulting models have been based largely on nutritional studies combined with direct analogy (to living peoples or nonhuman primates)oroncon-textual evidence, such as archeological and paleoenvironmental indicators. Although many of these models are elegantly constructed and well reasoned, they do not tell us what the hominins actually ate. They form hypotheses that may or may not be testable given the nature of the fossil record.
Here, we review and evaluate some recent models for dietary adaptations of early Homo in the context of the hominin fossil record, thearcheologicalrecord, andevidence for environmental dynamics during the Plio-Pleistocene. The most notable point from this exercise is the limited scope of what can actually be said about the diets of these early hominins. Nevertheless, the jaws and teeth of early Homo do offer some clues to the diets of these species. A synthetic view of this evidence, in the context of archeological and paleoenvironmentalindicators, suggeststhatthe origin and early evolution of Homo are most likely associated with biological and cultural adaptations for a more flexible, versatile sub-sistencestrategy.Thisstrategywouldhaveput the earliest members of our genus at an advantage given climatic fluctuation and a mosaic of different microhabitats in Africa during the late Pliocene.
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