A new study calls into question established ideas and redefines the role of carcass harvesting in human evolution, showing that this was an efficient strategy — one that complemented hunting and plant collection.
A team of researchers from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution revisited the way in which the practice of necrophagy shaped human history, and concludes that feeding on dead animals was, throughout our evolution, a survival strategy constant and essential.
recently published in Journal of Human Evolutionanalyzed the use of carcasses and decaying flesh of dead animals, normally in progressive stages of putrefaction, from the first hominids to the present day.
According to the authors of the study, the use of carcasses provided important benefits to the first humans: it allowed them to obtain food with a much less effort than that required by hunting and became especially useful in periods of scarcity of other resources.
“Carcass collecting is often considered a marginal activity by archaeologists; however, recent theoretical developments and experimental observations in the field of scavenger ecology suggest that this is a wrong perception that must be corrected“, write the authors of the study.
The results of the study also suggest that the use of carcasses was more frequent than previously thought and that the animals that feed on them developed behaviors that help minimize disease risks.
The team also points out that humans have several characteristics that make this type of strategy effective.
“O The acidic pH of the human stomach can act as a defense against pathogens and toxins, and the risk of infection has decreased considerably When we started using the fire for cooking“, say the investigators.
“Furthermore, our ability to travel long distances with low energy expenditure was crucial for finding food opportunities,” they add.
Language and stone tools —even the simplest ones— facilitated collective organization to locate carcasses and access meat, fat and bone marrow. This combination of factors made the use of carcasses a highly efficient activity, complementary to hunting and collecting plants.
In the 1960s, the discovery, in Africa, of the first evidence that ancient hominins consumed meat triggered an intense debate: did they hunt these animals themselves or did they simply use the carcasses they found?
For decades, the use of carcasses was seen as a “primitive” phasewhich would have been outdated as soon as humans learned to hunt.
However, recent studies have completely reversed This perspective highlights: all carnivorous species consume carcasses to a greater or lesser extent, and many current groups of hunter-gatherers continue to practice this form of subsistence.
The authors conclude that the use of carcasses was not just a transitory stage, but rather a fundamental and recurring strategy throughout human evolution, complementary to hunting and gathering plants.
Ultimately, far from being a marginal behavior, taking advantage of carcasses was a key part in the process that made us human.
