The Early Hominid Plant-Food Niche: Insights From an Analysis of Plant Exploitation by Homo, Pan, and Papio in Eastern and Southern Africa [and Comments and Reply]

Peters, Charles R.; O’Brien, Eileen M.; Boaz, Noel T.; Conroy, Glenn C.; Godfrey, Laurie R.; Kawanaka, Kenji; Kortlandt, Adriaan; Nishida, Toshisada; Poirier, Frank E.; Smith, Euclid O.

doi:10.1086/202631

Cited by 81 publications

(45 citation statements)

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“…The sorts of tools Oldowan hominins may have made from perishable materials are unknown, even though analogy with nonhuman primates and hunter-gatherers suggest they existed (Panger et al, 2003;Plummer, 2004 (Ungar, 2012), analogy with living humans and non-human primates (Peters & O'Brien, 1981;O'Connell et al, 1999;Wrangham et al, 1999), actualistic studies of potential plant food availability from modern ecosystems (Sept, 1994;Peters &Vogel, 2005;Copeland, 2009), and mechanical properties of potential wild plant foods (Dominy et al, 2008) suggest that Oldowan hominins could have consumed a variety of plant foods, although the actual species of plants and types of plant products that were consumed are unknown. Social behaviors, such as the type of hominin mating systems, and the scale and extent of food-sharing, are also difficult to address with the paleoanthropological record (Swedell & Plummer, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Old stones' song: Use-wear experiments and analysis of the Oldowan quartz and quartzite assemblage from Kanjera South (Kenya)

Lemorini

Plummer

Braun

et al. 2014

Journal of Human Evolution

152

100

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Old stones' song: Use-wear experiments and analysis of the Oldowan quartz and quartzite assemblage from Kanjera South (Kenya) http://ljmu-new.eprints-hosting.org/313/ Article LJMU has developed LJMU Research Online for users to access the research output of the University more effectively. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article (s) AbstractEvidence of Oldowan tools by ~2.6 million years ago (Ma) may signal a major adaptive shift in hominin evolution. While tool-dependent butchery of large mammals was important by at least 2.0 Ma, the use of artifacts for tasks other than faunal processing has been difficult to diagnose.Here we report on use-wear analysis of ~2.0 Ma quartz and quartzite artifacts from Kanjera South, Kenya. A use-wear framework that links processing of specific organic materials and tool motions to their resultant use-wear patterns was developed in a suite of experiments. A blind test was then carried out to assess and improve the efficacy of this experimental use-wear framework, which was then applied to the analysis of 62 Oldowan artifacts from Kanjera South.Use-wear on a total of 23 artifact edges was attributed to the processing of specific materials.Use-wear on seven edges (30%) was attributed to animal tissue processing, corroborating zooarchaeological evidence for butchery at the site. Use-wear on sixteen edges (70%) was attributed to the processing of plant tissues, including wood, grit-covered plant tissues that we interpret as underground storage organs (USOs), and stems of grass or sedges. These results expand our knowledge of the suite of behaviors carried out in the vicinity of Kanjera South to include the processing of materials that would be "invisible" using standard archaeological methods. Wood cutting and scraping may represent the production and/or maintenance of wooden tools. Use-wear related to USO processing extends the archaeological evidence for hominin acquisition and consumption of this resource by over 1.5 Ma. Cutting of grasses, sedges or reeds may be related to a subsistence task (e.g., grass seed harvesting, cutting out papyrus culm for consumption) and/or a non-subsistence related task (e.g., production of "twine," simple carrying devices, or bedding). These results highlight the adaptive significance of lithic technology for hominins at Kanjera.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Plant foods are of critical importance to African tropical foragers, and it is likely that Oldowan hominins relied predominantly on plant foods as well (Lee, 1979;Peters and O'Brien, 1981;Peters, 1987;Rodman, 2002;Schoeninger et al, 2001;Sept, 1986;Stahl, 1984;Vincent, 1984).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Old stones' song: Use-wear experiments and analysis of the Oldowan quartz and quartzite assemblage from Kanjera South (Kenya)

Lemorini

Plummer

Braun

et al. 2014

Journal of Human Evolution

152

100

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show abstract

“…For wild game, nutrient analyses from all species have been pooled and averaged. For plant foods we used a weighted average based on forager plant utilization in eastern and southern Africa (Peters & O'Brien, 1981). This method does focus on the likely ancestral human homeland, but fails to include items such as gums and fungi which are commonly consumed by foragers living elsewhere.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review Paleolithic nutrition revisited: A twelve-year retrospective on its nature and implications

1997

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“…Understanding ecological niche differentiation of early hominins relies heavily on comparisons with extant primates, other mammals, and mammalian communities as a whole (Clutton-Brock and Harvey 1979;Peters and O'Brien 1981;Rodman 1999;Walker 1981;Yeakel et al 2007). Dunbar (1976Dunbar ( , 1983, Elton (2006), Jolly (1970Jolly ( , 2001, Lee-Thorp et al (2003), and Sponheimer et al (2006a) proposed that baboons (Papio spp.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Insights Can Baboon Feeding Ecology Provide for Early Hominin Niche Differentiation?

et al. 2008

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Several authors have proposed that papionin baboons provide appropriate analogs for early hominin niche differentiation. Savanna-dwelling baboons and australopiths both radiated around the same time after Neogene expansion of C 4 grasslands, likely experiencing similar environmental changes and faced with solving similar ecological problems. We explore the insights baboons may provide into dietary ecology of savanna-occupying hominins. We compare dietary information from stable isotope data for feces, hair, and tooth dentine collagen of modern chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) with dietary data for Plio-Pleistocene papionins and hominins from South African savannas. Results confirm that, like the australopiths, baboons consume substantial amounts of C 4 food sources. However, the magnitude of inter-and intraindividual variation in baboon diets across different seasons and habitats is less than that from specimens of Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus analyzed to date. Hominins also consumed greater amounts of C 4 resources. Thus, though the data demonstrate that the radiation of both primate groups was closely linked with the spread of C 4 grasslands, hominins were even more extreme ecological generalists than baboons were. The absence of a fixed-diet in papionins implies that it was unlikely that the more ecologically flexible hominins evolved specializations for any one food type, an interpretation consistent with recent carbon isotope, dental microwear, and ecomorphological studies. We propose that researchers place less emphasis on resolving the foods that were most important for hominin differentiation; instead, future research should focus on questions related to ecological generalism.

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The Early Hominid Plant-Food Niche: Insights From an Analysis of Plant Exploitation by Homo, Pan, and Papio in Eastern and Southern Africa [and Comments and Reply]

Cited by 81 publications

References 0 publications

Old stones' song: Use-wear experiments and analysis of the Oldowan quartz and quartzite assemblage from Kanjera South (Kenya)

Old stones' song: Use-wear experiments and analysis of the Oldowan quartz and quartzite assemblage from Kanjera South (Kenya)

Review Paleolithic nutrition revisited: A twelve-year retrospective on its nature and implications

What Insights Can Baboon Feeding Ecology Provide for Early Hominin Niche Differentiation?

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