A hypothesis to explain the role of meat-eating in human evolution

✍ Scribed by Katharine Milton

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 130 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1060-1538
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1520-6505(1999)8:1<11::aid-evan6>3.0.co;2-m

✦ Synopsis

In the mammalian gut . . . the inherited element dominates the structure.'' (Mitchell 1 )

Primates, particularly humans, are noted for their relatively large brains and considerable behavioral plasticity. [2][3][4] In contrast to behavior, morphological structures tend to alter only slowly over time, generally in response to particular selective pressures. Furthermore, though each evolutionary lineage represents a long history of morphological change, such changes are not changes sui generis, but rather arise out of the ''basic physiological design'' 5 bequeathed to that lineage by its ancestors.

Here I will argue that the pattern of gut anatomy and digestive kinetics characteristic of ancestral Hominoidea imposed certain constraints on their descendents in terms of diet. Meat-eating in the human lineage (Homo spp.) appears to be one way of circumventing these constraints.