1.4 Hunting
After stone tools appear in the fossil record it seems clear that meat was eaten in increasing quantities, but whether it was obtained through hunting or scavenging remains a topic of intense debate.  One of the most intriguing ideas is that changes in diet quality during hominid evolution were linked with the evolution of brain size. The shift to a more calorically dense diet was probably needed in order to substantially increase the amount of metabolic energy being used by the hominid brain. Thus, while nutritional factors alone are not sufficient to explain the evolution of our large brains, it seems clear that certain dietary changes were necessary for substantial brain evolution to take place.
graphic
Top