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09/17/2007: "Humans evolved through agriculture"
The discovery of genetic evidence for a massive dietary shift in human history could provide some of
the strongest evidence to date in support of a controversial hypothesis that purports to explain why humans, alone among all the apes, suddenly evolved such big brains.
One plausible reason is that early hominins suddenly stumbled on a new, rich food source capable of fuelling a large, energetically expensive brain. For many years, anthropologists presumed the crucial food source was meat, which became more accessible as our ancestors began to use stone tools for hunting or cutting. More recently, however, others have proposed an alternative - starchy tubers. Proponents of this view argue that early hominins had teeth better suited to grinding plant matter than tearing flesh. Recent studies of isotope ratios in hominin fossils also suggest a plant-rich diet.
[ It wasn't that we woke up and became radically better hunters. It was that over time, nature encouraged us to start farming. The hunter-gatherer hypothesis may be illusory. ]
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19526215.100