In the human past, is the perennial consumption of starch a deep or shallow phenomenon?
Recent research has argued that digestible carbohydrates, rather than just meat, were necessary to accommodate the metabolic demands of the evolving human brain. This argument is supported by genetic and biological evidence that Homo sapiens was especially adapted to a starch diet within the Palaeolithic, making starch consumption a deep phenomenon. Yet there is no deep time archaeological evidence of starch consumption by early humans. A significant body of evidence attests to the increasing starch diet of humans from the Upper Palaeolithic, through the advent of agriculture into the present day where cereals represent 70% of worlds energy intake. Without archaeological evidence of regular early human starch consumption, this appears to be a shallow phenomenon on the timescale of human evolution. Based on botanical evidence from Klasies River and Blombos Caves, among the earliest human Middle Stone Age (MSA) occupation sites of South Africa, this thesis makes three key arguments: firstly that cooked roots and tubers provided a high quality starch diet for MSA hunter-gatherers from at least 120 thousand years ago in the Cape region; secondly, that pounded, cooked tuber remains and mixed plant food 'recipes'
Larbey, Cynthia Deidre Anne
Early human starch diet ; Roots and tubers ; Parenchyma ; Klasies River ; Blombos Cave ; South African Middle Stone Age ; Hearths ; Micromorphology ; Starchy plant processing ; Starchy plant mixing and cooking
In the human past, is the perennial consumption of starch a deep or shallow phenomenon?. Recent research has argued that digestible carbohydrates, rather than just meat, were necessary to accommodate the metabolic demands of the evolving human brain. This argument is supported by genetic and biological evidence that Homo sapiens was especially adapted to a starch diet within the Palaeolithic, making starch consumption a deep phenomenon. Yet there is no deep time archaeological evidence of starch consumption by early humans. A significant body of evidence attests to the increasing starch diet of humans from the Upper Palaeolithic, through the advent of agriculture into the present day where cereals represent 70% of worlds energy intake. Without archaeological evidence of regular early human starch consumption, this appears to be a shallow phenomenon on the timescale of human evolution. Based on botanical evidence from Klasies River and Blombos Caves, among the earliest human Middle Stone Age (MSA) occupation sites of South Africa, this thesis makes three key arguments: firstly that cooked roots and tubers provided a high quality starch diet for MSA hunter-gatherers from at least 120 thousand years ago in the Cape region; secondly, that pounded, cooked tuber remains and mixed plant food 'recipes'
human past perennial consumption starch deep shallow phenomenon recent argue rather meat necessary accommodate demand evolve human brain argument_support genetic biological evidence homo sapiens especially adapt starch diet within palaeolithic make starch consumption deep phenomenon yet deep time archaeological_evidence starch consumption early human significant_body evidence attest increase starch diet human upper_palaeolithic advent agriculture present_day cereal represent_world energy without archaeological_evidence regular early human starch consumption appear shallow phenomenon human evolution based botanical evidence river among early human middle stone_age msa occupation_site south_africa make three_key argument firstly cook roots provide high_quality starch diet msa hunter_gatherer least cape region secondly pound cook remain mixed plant_food recipes