Around 11,500 years ago, farming started in the Middle East. It was a revolution for humans. Before that, people mainly hunted and gathered food, a lifestyle they followed for over 300,000 years since humans evolved in Africa.
There are very few well-preserved human remains that predate the advent of agriculture, which makes it challenging to determine what the diets of pre-agricultural humans consisted of.
But, new research is shedding light on this mystery. Scientists looked at the diet of a group of people from North Africa before they started farming. Their research suggests that these people mainly ate plant-based diets.
Isotopic analysis of ancient remains from Iberomaurusian culture
The researchers studied the chemical clues in bones and teeth from seven individuals and some isolated teeth. These remains were from about 15,000 years ago and were found in a cave near the village of Taforalt in northeastern Morocco. These people belonged to the Iberomaurusian culture.
By looking at different forms of elements like carbon, nitrogen, zinc, sulfur, and strontium in these remains, the researchers could figure out what kinds of plants and meat they ate.
They found traces of various edible wild plants at the site, like sweet acorns, pine nuts, pistachios, oats, and legumes known as pulses. The main meat they hunted, based on the bones found in the cave, was a type of sheep called Barbary sheep.
Zineb Moubtahij, a doctoral student in archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and the main author of the study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, said that people used to think that hunter-gatherers mostly ate animal proteins. But, the evidence from Taforalt shows that plants were a big part of their diet.
Archaeochemist and co-author of the study, Klervia Jaouen from the French research agency CNRS, stated, “It is important as it suggests that possibly several populations in the world already started to include a substantial amount of plants in their diet.”
Inhabited Morocco and Libya around 25,000 to 11,000 years ago
The Iberomaurusians were hunter-gatherers who lived in regions of Morocco and Libya from approximately 25,000 to 11,000 years ago. It’s clear from the evidence that the cave they inhabited was both a living space and a burial ground.
Researchers noted that these people spent a considerable amount of time in the cave throughout the year, indicating a lifestyle that was less nomadic and more settled than just wandering around looking for food.
They made use of various wild plants that grew at different times of the year, and their dental cavities showed they depended on starchy plants for sustenance, according to research.
