The diet of early man: Aspects of archaeological evidence from lower and middle Pleistocene sites in Africa

Abstract Evidence for Palaeolithic diet is critically reviewed, especially that from African sites. Methods of evaluating it, and some of the resulting socio‐economic conclusions, are examined. Hominids, although their ancestral stock was largely vegetarian, have evolved so as to include more protein in their diet; its importance has varied, apparently increasing by latitudinal gradations from equator to pole. Flexible joint dependence on animal and plant foods, establishment of home bases, food sharing, and differentiation of the subsistence activities of the sexes, together constitute an integrated behavioural complex already partly established some two million years ago. Large animals are certainly represented in Lower Pleistocene food refuse; they become commoner in the Middle Pleistocene, when evidence for effective co‐operative large‐scale hunting also first occurs. Other Middle and Late Pleistocene developments, some dependent on the increased geographic range of hominid settlement, are briefly reviewed. In Africa, hominid subsistence was probably broadly based throughout the Pleistocene.