Well aged meat
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Humans became meat eaters about 2.5 million years ago - this is according to a study in which the dental systems of ancient skeletons were examined. Eating meat requires sharp and strong teeth, which are adapted to cutting more than to peeling and grinding, operations that are required in eating plant roots. The sharpness was required to cut a piece from a larger block of meat.
The study by Dr. Peter Ungar of the University of Arkansas in the USA, which was reported in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences, tried to date the transition to eating meat by comparing the teeth of the homoinids, which resemble humans, to those of the "Australipticus afarensis", an earlier ancestor of humans. .
Examining the teeth using lasers and computerized scanners revealed that the teeth of the homoinid were sharper than Australopithecus afarensis.
Dr. Ungar concluded from this that the homoeinid was a meat eater. In the study it was also discovered that the teeth of the homoinids were not hollow like those of the chimpanzees, who mainly consume soft food (fruits or the inner contents of a nut, and do not eat the shell). Australopithecus afarensis, whose skeleton was discovered in Ethiopia, was closer in terms of its food type to chimpanzees. In another study by Leslia Halusko from the University of Illinois in the USA, it is claimed that the Homoinids used plant roots as tooth charms, "which proves that already in ancient times they knew a thing or two about oral hygiene", the researcher wrote.
Alex Doron, Maariv
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