Tina Lüdecke, a geochemist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, and her colleagues examined samples taken from the teeth of 43 fossil mammals dating back about 3.5 million years from the Sterkfontein caves in South Africa. By comparing the nitrogen ratio in the tooth enamel of A. africanus with that of other extinct mammals from Sterkfontein and modern African mammals, scientists found the following. It turns out that the ancient ancestors of humans had a varied diet but was not rich in mammalian meat.
However, the results do not mean that A. africanus cannot eat meat from time to time. It is also not excluded that primates eat a lot of termites because they contain less of the form of nitrogen that is abundant in mammal meat.
Source: Ferra
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
