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New discoveries made in the Klasies River cave in South Cape, South Africa, where charred remains of food have been discovered, are the first archaeological evidence that anatomically modern humans roasted and ate starchy foods. is 120,000 years old.
New research by an international team of archaeologists, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, provides archaeological evidence that was so far lacking to support the hypothesis that duplication of starch digestion genes is an adaptive response to a starch-enriched diet.
"It's very exciting, the genetic and biological evidence previously suggested that the first humans would have eaten starch, but this research had not been done before," says lead author Cynthia Larbey of the Department of Archeology. from Cambridge University. The work is part of a systemic multidisciplinary investigation into the role played by plants and fire in the lives of communities in the middle stone age.
The interdisciplinary team researched and analyzed undisturbed foci at the archaeological site of the Klasies River.
"Our results showed that these small asbestos were used for cooking food and that starchy roots and tubers were clearly part of their diet, from the oldest levels of about 120,000 years ago to 65,000 years, "says Larbey. "Despite changes in hunting strategies and stone tool technologies, they still cooked roots and tubers."
Professor Sarah Wurz of the School of Geography, Archeology and Environment of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa (Wits University), and principal investigator of the site, indicates that research shows that "the first human beings followed were ecological geniuses capable of intelligently exploiting their environment to feed themselves properly and perhaps even to heal themselves."
By combining cooked roots and tubers as a staple with the protein and fat of crustaceans, fish and small and large fauna, these communities have been able to adapt optimally to their environment, which testifies to Great ecological intelligence as early as 120,000 years ago.
"The starch-based diet is not something that happens when we started growing, but rather, it's as old as humans themselves," says Larbey. Agriculture in Africa has only begun during the last 10,000 years of human existence.
Humans living in South Africa 120,000 years ago formed and lived in small groups.
"Evidence from the Klasies River, which contains several fragments of human skull and two maxillary fragments dating back to 120,000 years ago, shows that humans living at that time resembled the modern humans of today. However, they were a little tougher, "says Wurz.
Klasies River is a very famous human occupation site on the Cape Coast, South Africa, unearthed by Wurz. With Susan Mentzer from the Senckenberg Institute and the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, they explored small homes.
The research to look for plant materials in homes was inspired by Professor Hilary Deacon, who conveyed to Wurz the management of the Klasies River site. Deacon did groundbreaking work on the site and, in the 1990s, reported that there would be plant material in and around the homes. However, at the time, micro-methods were not available to test this hypothesis.
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