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CHAPTER 1
Early Food Acquisition
FOR TENS OF thousands of years before the adoption of agriculture, people lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering in the wild. They ate fruits, seeds, leaves, roots, birds, snakes, frogs, snails, maggots, insects. A given band would consume over one hundred different kinds of plants and animals in a year. The composition of the diet differed from place to place and season to season. To obtain food hunter-gatherers moved from one region to another, camping for weeks or months in one place and moving to another when food got low. They probably revisited sites every year or two. For most of us such a life would be unbearable. We therefore think that it must have been miserable for our hunter-gatherer ancestors. It is of course impossible to know how people really felt back then, yet the study of earth’s few remaining hunter-gatherer societies does not confirm a dismal assessment of that life-style.
Scientists have established beyond reasonable doubt that the human species originated in Africa and that it shares ancestors with apes and monkeys. The details and chronology of human ancestry, however, are far from resolved. The principal source of anthropological information is the remains of the skeletons of human forebears. Scientists have found only a few hundred prehistoric skeletons, all incomplete. Great importance is attached to these meager remains. Where people lived, the kind of food they ate, the climates they experienced, the tools they made, charcoal from their fires, scraps of animal bones and seeds in their camps—these provide additional clues to human evolution.
Extrapolating from such scanty evidence, scientists have grouped the earliest hominids, or members of the primate family to which humans belong, in the genus Australopithecus.1 The oldest fossil remains of a species presumed to be ancestors of humans, A. afarensis, are of this genus. Anthropologists have found their bones in Kenya, east Africa, and have estimated them to be about 3.75 million years old. Fossils have also been found of several other species of Australopithecus, for example A. robustus, which lived from 2 to 1.5 million years ago in South Africa, and A. boisei, which existed 2.5 to 1.2 million years ago in east Africa. Australopithecus lived at a time when the world’s climate and vegetation were changing. The rainforests that covered much of Africa were giving way to savannas, grasslands with scattered trees. Australopithecus probably lived where forests and savannas meet. Scientists believe that Australopithecus walked erect, could run quickly, and was about half the size of an average modern human. Anthropologists believe these early hominids might have been tool users, but there is no firm evidence.
Paleontologists first found fossil remains of a species presumed to descend from A. afarensis and be ancestral to humans in Olduvai Gorge, Kenya. They named this species Homo habilis, which in Latin means “skillful man,” because of the large quantity of tools such as hand axes and choppers found with their bones. Homo habilis presumably occupied the planet about 2 million years ago. Apparently they were efficient hunters, using stone tools for skinning and cutting up animal carcasses. Most but not all of the animals were small. In one case elephant bones were found near H. habilis tools. It is possible that H. habilis scavenged rather than killed large animals. Meat was clearly an important element of their diet. The presence of butchery sites suggests that these people had a home base to which they brought their kills. Their social organization might have been complex enough to allow for collaboration, at least to the extent of sharing food. There might also have been a division of labor between males, who hunted, and females, who took care of children at the home camp.
Sketch of human phylogeny, from Australopithecus afarensis (lower figure) through Homo habilis and H. erectus to H. sapiens (upper left figure). Note the increase in size and the shortening of the limbs. Homo habilis used only crude stone tools, while H. sapiens, depicted here with a hoe, is associated with the beginning of agriculture. The figure on the right represents A. robustus, who probably shared a common ancestor with A. afarensis.
Paleontologists also found remains of a species presumed to have descended from H. habilis and to be ancestral to modern humans, Homo erectus (“upright man”), in beds dated at 1.5 million years ago or less. Homo erectus was taller and more heavily built than H. habilis and his cranial capacity was much larger. He was similar to modern humans in most physical characteristics. Homo erectus was the first humanlike species to leave Africa. Groups of them migrated to Asia. The famous Peking and Java men belong to this species. Homo erectus first stayed in tropical environments, then invaded temperate areas of China and Europe. No doubt they had to adapt physically and culturally to the colder climates.
Homo erectus learned to make complex and diverse tools such as choppers, picks, cleavers, and awls. This called for manual dexterity and an ability to plan construction. There is evidence that H. erectus used fire, probably first by taking advantage of natural fires, then by learning how to start them. The oldest human remains associated with the use of fire come from Kenya and are dated at 1.4 million years BP (before the present) and from China (700,000 BP). These might have been natural fires. The oldest hearths associated with human remains are a little under o. 5 million years old and have been found in both Europe and China. People used fire for warmth, for protection against large animals, and to cook food. Cooking tends to soften food and make it easier to chew and digest. It is interesting that about the time hearths appeared, human jaws began to get smaller and recede.2 Smaller and less protruding jaws are characteristic of our species, Homo sapiens (“wise man”).
Because thousands of years separate many of these early fossils, it is difficult to establish direct continuity between “species” of humans. Homo erectus is undoubtedly an early form of H. sapiens. A strong case also can be made that H. habilis is a direct ancestor of modern man. It is less clear whether A. afarensis is a direct forerunner. He could represent an extinct branch in the tree of human ancestry.
Homo sapiens appeared about 300,000 years ago. The earliest H. sapiens, such as the well-known Neanderthal man, had a body like modern man’s but a somewhat different skull shape. Paleontologists found remains of H. sapiens in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Siberia. H. sapiens lived in France during the Ice Age and were apparently the first humans to live throughout the year in an arctic environment. Homo sapiens evolved into the anatomically modern human with a smaller jaw and rounder skull.
Thus hominids have roamed the planet for at least the last 2 million years. In that time they moved out of Africa and dispersed into every habitable corner of the earth. During part of the Ice Age, or Pleistocene, they had to contend with great climatic changes. Wet and dry, cold and warm periods alternated rapidly in geologic terms. In tropical latitudes the temperature during the Ice Age was not very different from what it is today, even during the coldest periods. In high latitudes, however, temperatures were lower, especially in winter. This and increased precipitation created large glaciers that covered most of Europe, Russia, and Canada. Because the ice sheets tied up great quantities of water on land in frozen form, sea levels fell and the Bering Strait that separates Alaska and Asia today became a land bridge, allowing people to walk across from Asia to America. The Mediterranean Sea separating Africa and Europe also dried up.
Hominids diverged from other primate groups after savannas had become widespread. The savanna climate is seasonal, with a five- to nine-month wet season alternating with a dry season. During the wet season plants produce many kinds of leaves, flowers, and fruits, typical primate foods. During the dry season there is little food other than roots and tubers, old leaves, and some seeds. Because of the structure of their teeth and jaws, anthropologists believe that the more robust Australopithecus ate large quantities of tough leaves and roots.3 The small species of Australopithecus, on the other hand, ate whatever was available.
The genus Homo, which descends from a smaller species of Australopithecus, evolved along a different path. Rather than concentrating on abundant but low-quality food such as leaves and roots, they began eating larger amounts of meat. During the period (Pliocene) just before as well as during the Pleistocene era, there were many large grass-eating quadrupeds in the savannas of Africa. During the dry season they concentrated around water holes. Scientists believe that human ancestors took advantage of this situation to hunt. Hunting was riskier than eating roots, but animal food was more nutritious than plant food.
During the Pleistocene the fauna of the world included a much greater proportion than today of large mammals. Humans actively hunted animals such as bison and mammoths using a variety of techniques, from gang attacks to pit traps. Most large mammals became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, about 12,000 years ago. One theory attributes their extinction to overhunting by humans, but their wholesale disappearance coincides with a climatic change, so the reason for it is uncertain.4
Some anthropologists believe that, in the late Pleistocene, humans began to hunt smaller mammals, birds, fish, and shellfish and to collect small seeds and starchy foods such as tubers. 5 For example, populations of H. sapiens in western Europe lived off migratory herds of reindeer. 6 Over time, their camps became larger and more numerous, and apparently they occupied them throughout the year. Remains of smaller animals such as migratory birds and aquatic species begin to show up in the refuse of camps from the late Ice Age (14,000 to 12,000 BP). This change in diet may have resulted from an increase in the human population, a decline in large-mammal populations, deterioration of the environment, or improvements in the tools and techniques for harvesting and processing food. The appearance of the remains of smaller animals accompanies an increase in grinding tools used to process tough plant materials such as seeds and roots. Seeds and tubers belonged to plants most suitable for domestication and most likely to lead to cultivation.
During the 2 million years that elapsed between their appearance and the invention of agriculture, humans developed a system of subsistence known as hunting and gathering.7 Their diet consisted of plant materials supplemented by the flesh of wild animals. This way of life, universal 12,000 years ago, survived until recently in a few pockets, such as among the !Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, the Australian aborigines, some Amazonian Indians, and the Inuit. Thanks to that circumstance it has been possible to study this form of food procurement in detail.8
The few remaining hunter-gatherers, it is presumed, behave similarly to hunter-gatherers who lived 12,000 years ago. But there are many differences in particular aspects of life and social organization among the Inuit, !Kung Bushmen, and Australian aborigines. In fact, the most important lesson derived from studies of extant hunter-gatherer tribes is that they share very few characteristics. Thus extrapolations from the present to the past should be undertaken cautiously. It must be remembered, for example, that the hunting-gathering way of life survived in these groups because it was successful. This does not mean that it thrived in groups of people who abandoned it in favor of agriculture. Present-day hunter-gatherers, moreover, have been in contact with agriculturists and many have borrowed customs and tools from them.
Another important point to consider is that neither human populations nor their surroundings were static during the 2 million years that preceded the adoption of agriculture. People experienced the climatic fluctuations associated with glacial epochs. They perfected the use and manufacture of stone, bone, and wood tools, discovered the use of fire, and learned how to make baskets. These and other changes must have had profound effects on their way of life.
A prevalent notion espoused until recently by anthropologists is that the life of hunter-gatherers was fraught with danger and haunted by the specter of famine.9 According to this view people had a very short life span and were constantly wandering in search of food. If present-day hunter-gatherers represent in some respects the life of people 12,000 years ago, nothing could be farther from the truth. Today’s hunter-gatherers eat well and have plenty of leisure time, and although they move around, their stay in any given place can be lengthy. They spend only a third of their time in the pursuit of food.
The !Kung Bushmen in Botswana and neighboring Namibia are a good example of living hunter-gatherers. 10 In 1960, Harvard anthropologist Irven DeVore conducted a careful study of the !Kung that changed many preconceived notions about the life of traditional people. The Kalahari Desert is one of the most inhospitable regions of the world, and agriculture without irrigation is not feasible. The !Kung form groups of twenty to forty persons who assemble in camps around water holes during the dry season and radiate out from there during the rainy season. Their density is forty-one persons per hundred square miles, very low by present standards. However, it is surprisingly high for the harsh environment in which they live, and probably higher than the average human density in pre-agricultural days. The !Kung move their camps at least five times during the year, but they do not go far. Rarely do they move more than twelve miles from a waterhole. Although they are not sedentary, neither are they constantly on the move.
Men and women spend about the same amount of time obtaining food, two to three days a week, working on average not more than six hours a day for a total of twelve to nineteen hours a w...
