Human omnivore myth

Is that so? If you take a look at the dental structure of the earliest known people their jaws contained heaps of teeth similar to molars, which were presumably used to grind tough grains and the like... they looked very similar to cows' teeth.

We hired out a bunch of lectures delivered by Eugene Weber (History professor UCLA) on the history of the western tradition, and his studies indicated that people didn't always eat flesh. It took a long, long, long time for early humans to figure out how to bring down any animal they deemed worthy of eating, and for a long time we were not on top of the food chain. When people began farming (approximately 8000 years ago, also believed by many to mark the beginning of civilisation), they mainly farmed vegetables, rice and cotton. If this year is to represent the earth's history, farming started yesterday on the evolution continuum, and meat-eating people came about late last week.

^ name me one evolutionary biologist who believes that any type of Hominidae (Homo erectus. Homo sapien, Neanderthal) were herbivores.

For most of history humans were scavengers, so basically we would eat whatever we could find including meat, plants, bugs, eggs etc. Though we were only able to eat very small amounts of uncooked meat.

Then with the invention of fire, humans were able to consume more meat as cooked meat is more easy to chew and digest. Also with tools humans were now able to hunt and kill animals, as opposed to just scavenging.

I don't believe that the diseases we are seeing today would have existed so much thousands or millions of years ago. People are eating very high amounts of animal products today, nothing compared to the small amounts our ancestors would have eaten.

I don't think there is any debate as to whether humans are omnivores, as evidence clearly indicates that throughout history humans have always consumed some sort of animal product.
Modern day humans, especially in wealthy countries such as Australia have easy access to a large variety of plant based products which allow us to get all the nutrients we need to survive solely from plants, so there is no need for us to eat animal products.

Aaron:

That's fallacious reasoning mate. I'd have to go do a degree to refute that challenge, which in my world we call "advancement of an unfalsifiable hypothesis".

^ that's why i asked, so i can read the words of an actual expert that spends his life on the study rather than read inconsequential facts about humans not having claws.

If there is a legitimate scientific consensus that validates the theory that Hominidae were herbivorous I'd like to read it.
a Cardiologist or a Onichognomist is not an authority on the history of human evolution or diet.

Exactly, but if you look at the history of Australia it would seem impossible that aboriginals would survive on an all plant diet. At times it would be hard enough to find water let alone a continual supply of bush tucker.
They had to keep moving and eat whatever was available. Fish, grubs, possums, berries.

First point: why are you assuming that a leading evolutionary expert is necessarily male? Watch your words.

Well you're free to think what you want to. If you're going to resort to fallacious reasoning to support your argument, we're bashing our heads against the wall.

I don't believe we need to refer to evolutionary biologists to support a claim that there is a strong correlation between meat eating and heart disease, and I'm quite happy to listen to what a world-renowned anthropologist has to say about the culinary habits of prehistoric man, and use their researched opinions in conjunction with the findings of a medical professional to remind me never to look at flesh as food again.

i never said we were herbivores, but you can't just ignore the appendix?
I totally agree with everything you just said! our brains were and are, our most precious and dangerous weapons.
i think the real problem, is greed and over indulging.

...or Faunivore?

(Side note: biological anthropologist Matt Cartmill contends that early humans had eaten a preponderantly vegetable diet, as the primary method by which human animals acquired food and resources was through foraging, not hunting. Hunting was ineffiecient, and foraging was a more practical and productive means of production. Planned, coordinated hunting of large animals began about 20k years ago.

Anthropologist Steven Mithen maintains that australopithecines, prior to the homo genus (their brain-sized was not considered sufficient enough to qualify for genus Homo), were largely vegetarians.

Note the language used in these assertions)


The relationship between animals and early humans and their diet is a fascinating topic, but... it's all a moot point, isn't it? (As far as I know no evolutionary biologist maintains that early humans were herbivores, but it's also worth noting that that the systematic classification of diet types among animals remains a contentious issue)


Sources: Steven Mithen "The Hunter-Gatherer Prehistory of Human-Animal Interactions". Anthrozoos 12, no.4 (1999): 195-204

Matt Cartmill,"A view to a Death in the morning: Hunting and Nature through History" (Cambridge, Mass.: harvard University Press, (1993), 72.

You crack me up mate... is that APA? MLA user here... I prefer to give my lecturers Author/Page Number in-text citations, so that my references and paraphrases are verifiable.