this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2025
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Australopithecus at Sterkfontein did not consume substantial mammalian meat (www.science.org)
submitted 1 day ago by HylicManoeuvre@sh.itjust.works to c/science@lemmy.world
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Diet has long been hypothesized as a driver of change among hominins, especially with regard to the increase in brain size. Dietary niches reconstructed based on these fossils showed that the Australopithecus individuals had diets very similar to both contemporaneous and modern herbivores but different from carnivores.

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[–] jet@hackertalks.com 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The growth of brain size since Australopithecus might be due to a shift in diet away from the ape diets, I wonder what the cecum size was at that stage

[–] AntiThesis@leminal.space 2 points 23 hours ago

Learning to use fire also opened up a lot more nutrients from plants including legumes and tubers that are inedible or less nutritious without cooking.

[–] bizzle@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This graph makes it look like we have smaller brains than Neandertalensis?

Course, looking around...

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

Brain size is not strongly correlated with intelligence. Crows and octopi are considered to have similar intelligence as a human child, despite having much smaller brains. Whale brains are much larger than ours, but they're not considered especially intelligent.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 1 points 1 day ago

ha, yeah, I noticed that too, but its a graph of brain size over millions of years, so its close enough to illustrate the point that something big happened 2-3 million years ago.