Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Early hominins in the Early Middle Pleistocene Epoch processed a wide variety of starch-rich plant foods, according to a study. Compared with animal foods, wild plants require more extensive processing prior to consumption. The use of wild plants over the course of human evolution has not been well-studied, partly due to the low archaeological visibility of plant resources. Hadar Ahituv, Nira Alperson-Afil, Amanda Henry, Naama Goren-Inbar, and colleagues analyzed preserved plant microremains on eight basalt percussive tools, including anvils and hammerstones, from the early Middle Pleistocene site of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel. The authors extracted and classified more than 650 starch grains embedded in the surfaces of the basalt tools. The authors detected starches from acorns, grass grains, water chestnuts, yellow waterlily rhizomes, and legume seeds. The identified plants originated from diverse habitats, including a lake close to the site and more distant upland areas. The documented diversity and association with stone tools suggest that the microremains represent residues of plant food processing by hominins, rather than a natural representation of local flora. The authors note that the identified plants vary in seasonality and require diverse gathering and processing methods, representing indirect evidence of advanced cognitive abilities. According to the authors, the findings suggest that carbohydrates extracted from diverse wild plants played an important role in the diets of early hominins at least 780,000 years ago.
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Whole plant (top), edible part (middle), and characteristic starch grain (bottom) of oak. Hadar Ahituv and Yoel Melamed
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Article Source: PNAS news release
*“Starch-rich plant foods 780,000 y ago: Evidence from Acheulian percussive stone tools,” by Hadar Ahituv et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 6-Jan-2025. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2418661121
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