Study: Slicing Food, Eating Meat Helped Human Evolution

New evidence suggests that chopping up food and consuming meat have paved a way to the evolution of ancient humans. Scientists from Harvard University say that the acts of slicing up and eating meat triggered small-brained and big-jawed apes to transform into humans with big brains and small faces.

USA Today reported that a study, which was published in the journal Nature, found that slicing raw meat and pounding raw vegetables, using simple stone tools, before chewing on them could have been the practices that provoked anatomical changes in order for the ape-like ancestors to transform into the present human look. The researchers added that these anatomical changes had also contributed to the development of their abilities to walk and talk.

A previous research claimed that cooking is the game changer in the human evolution. However, the authors of the recent study argued that cooking alone could not support and explain why there were major renovations of the ancient human's heads and faces.

"Cooking is important, but it's not the whole story. What we show in this paper is that food processing - slicing and pounding - had really important and profound effects," Harvard University's Daniel Lieberman, lead author of the new study, explained.

"What we showed is that by processing food, especially meat, before eating it, humans not only decreased the effort needed to chew it, but also chew it much more effectively," co-author Katie Zink said in an article of the Independent. She added that eating meat and using stone tools to prepare food possibly resulted in the key reductions in the jaws, teeth and chewing muscles.

According to the scientists, the vegetarian ape-like ancestors had evolved into meat-eaters because of the nutritional demands of a large brain. Although raw meat still needs a lot of chewing, the scientists believed that they first sliced the meat into smaller pieces.

"Meat has a lot of nutrients, but it is also elastic. You can think of it as being like a rubber band. So the problem is that we can't break it down with our flat, low-cusped teeth," Zink added. "But if you slice it up, then you do not need to use your teeth to break it down as much, and you swallow much smaller particles."