NEW on SAPIENS: An evolutionary anthropologist argues that Paleolithic diets were much more varied than people think based on his research with the Hadza community, contemporary hunter-gatherers in Tanzania Out now! You don't want to miss this one!
about the eating habits of our ancestors by studying modern hunter-gatherer populations like the Hadza in northern Tanzania and the Aché in Paraguay. In an interview with, Pontzer explains what makes the Hadza’s surprisingly seasonal, diverse diets so different from popular notions of ancient meals.What do today’s “paleo diets” look like? How well do they capture our ancestors’ eating habits?People have developed many different versions, but the original paleo diet is quite meat heavy.
There are also inherent biases in a lot of the available archaeological and ethnographic data. In the early 1900s, and even before, a lot of the ethnographic reports were written by men who focused on men’s work. We know that traditionally that’s going to focus more on hunting than on gathering because of the way a lot of these small-scale societies divide their work: Men hunt, and women gather.
Month-by-month studies show that the Hadza diet varies dramatically throughout the year. In February, people get most of their calories from honey, but in July, berries are a large part of the diet while in September, meat features heavily.It tastes really good, and it’s packed full of calories. So they seek it out, just like we seek out good-tasting food in our environments. And in a lot of these habitats, it’s available year-round in big quantities.
How can you be sure that the way that people hunt and gather today looks the same as thousands of years ago? Maybe historically, hunter-gatherers used to eat more meat.Recently, there’s been some really cool work looking at the little bit of plaque and calculus stuck to the teeth in fossilized hominids. If you look at that, you’ll find remains of plants and starches. So, we actually do have preserved evidence that early humans ate lots of starchy vegetable foods.
Humans evolved to be adaptable. We are very much dependent on learning and developing these complex hoarding strategies to survive. And different people follow different paths. I think this adaptability is part of this whole package of how we live as a species. We’re built to be flexible. And flexibility means diversity.
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