Early humans began hunting prey animals two million years ago. A team of US scientists have proved ancient hunters ‘killed creatures for meat rather than having to scavenge from big cats.’
Animal bones from a two-million-year-old archaeological site called Kanjera South, near Lake Victoria in the west of Kenya, Africa, have been studied by a University of San Diego-led team of researchers. A new paper published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews presents gazelle and wildebeest bones having been cut with human crafted tools. The team said their paper provides evidence for the earliest strong indication for ‘hominin hunting.’
Notches on a bone left by ancient hunter butchering activity. (Jennifer A. Parkinson, Thomas W. Plummer, James S. Oliver, Laura C. Bishop)
The team from University of San Diego, California, has shattered any remaining skepticism that 2 million years ago humans were scavenging, or scraping a subsistence, from dead animals and plants. Contrasting greatly with the idea that humans survived on the meaty bones of carcasses left behind by big cats, the new study found traces of ‘butchery marks’ on gazelle and wildebeest bones left by ancient hunters.
