The Caveman Diet, also known as the Paleo Diet, is a weight-loss craze where calorie-counters pick foods they think early humans may have eaten.
For most followers, this means a meat-heavy diet.
But a new study suggests that if you truly want to eat like a caveman, you should be steering clear of red meat.
Contrary to popular belief, researchers from Bar-Ilan University say that early humans were not solely focused on animal protein.
Instead, cavemen were mostly vegetarians whose diets featured plant-based foods including acorns, cereals, legumes, and aquatic plants.
‘This discovery underscores the importance of plant foods in the evolution of our ancestors,’ said Dr Hadar Ahituv, lead author of the study.
‘We now understand that early hominids gathered a wide variety of plants year-round, which they processed using tools made from basalt.
‘This discovery opens a new chapter in the study of early human diets and their profound connection to plant-based foods.’
Cavemen have long been portrayed as voracious meat eaters (stock image)
The researchers focused on basalt tools found at an ancient settlement site near Gesher Benot Ya’akov
Cavemen have long been portrayed as voracious meat eaters.
But in their new study, the team set out to understand what early humans truly ate.
The researchers focused on basalt tools found at an ancient settlement site near Gesher Benot Ya’akov.
This site, located on the shores of the ancient Hula Lake, includes over 20 layers of settlement, fossilised animal remains, and plant remnants.
During their analysis, the researchers discovered starch grains approximately 780,000 years old on the basalt tools.
‘These include acorns, grass grains, water chestnuts, yellow water lily rhizomes, and legume seeds,’ the researchers wrote in their study, published in PNAS.
According to the experts, this indicates that plants played a central role in the cave man diet.
As for why our ancient ancestors prioritised these foods, the researchers suggest that it may be linked to the evolution of the human brain.
The Caveman Diet, also known as the Paleo Diet, is a weight-loss craze where calorie-counters pick foods they think early humans may have eaten. For most followers, this means a meat-heavy diet (stock image)
During their analysis, the researchers discovered starch grains on the basalt tools. ‘These include acorns, grass grains, water chestnuts, yellow water lily rhizomes, and legume seeds,’ the researchers wrote in their study
‘Starchy tubers, nuts, and roots, are rich in carbohydrates vital for the energy demands of the human brain,’ they added.
The study also highlights the sophisticated methods early humans used to process plant materials.
The starch grains were found on basalt maces and anvils – tools used to crack and crush a variety of plants, including acorns, cereals, legumes, and aquatic plants.
Researchers also identified microscopic remains such as pollen grains, rodent hair, and feathers, which they say supports the credibility of the starch findings.
The researchers hope the findings will help to rewrite the stereotype of the meat-loving caveman.
‘Our results further confirm the importance of plant foods in our evolutionary history and highlight the development of complex food-related behaviors,’ they added.
A close relative of modern humans, Neanderthals went extinct 40,000 years ago
The Neanderthals were a close human ancestor that mysteriously died out around 40,000 years ago.
The species lived in Africa with early humans for millennia before moving across to Europe around 300,000 years ago.
They were later joined by humans, who entered Eurasia around 48,000 years ago.
The Neanderthals were a cousin species of humans but not a direct ancestor – the two species split from a common ancestor – that perished around 50,000 years ago. Pictured is a Neanderthal museum exhibit
These were the original ‘cavemen’, historically thought to be dim-witted and brutish compared to modern humans.
In recent years though, and especially over the last decade, it has become increasingly apparent we’ve been selling Neanderthals short.
A growing body of evidence points to a more sophisticated and multi-talented kind of ‘caveman’ than anyone thought possible.
It now seems likely that Neanderthals had told, buried their dead, painted and even interbred with humans.
They used body art such as pigments and beads, and they were the very first artists, with Neanderthal cave art (and symbolism) in Spain apparently predating the earliest modern human art by some 20,000 years.
They are thought to have hunted on land and done some fishing. However, they went extinct around 40,000 years ago following the success of Homo sapiens in Europe.
