Under the supervision of Dr. Travis R. Pickering, Charles Egeland will analyze several fossil bone assemblages from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. Olduvai Gorge is particularly well-known for its rich record of early human behavior and evolution during the early Pleistocene (between 1.8 and 1.5 million years ago). One critical issue that will be addressed with the Olduvai assemblages is the shift by early humans from a largely vegetarian ancestral diet to one increasingly reliant on large mammal tissues like meat and marrow. An important consequence of this dietary shift would have been increased levels of competition with large, dangerous carnivores such as lions and hyaenas. Therefore, the overarching goal of this research will be to understand human/carnivore interactions and how this structured early human subsistence practices.
Characterizations of early human subsistence underlie a number of important evolutionary models. For example, the acquisition of nutrient-dense large mammal tissues in the early Pleistocene has been linked to the evolution of the human life history. Other researchers have argued that prehistoric subsistence practices can provide insights into contemporary diets. Increased meat-eating is thought by some to have promoted the evolution of complex social behaviors such as extensive food-sharing and perhaps sexual division of labor. Finally, models linking meat-eating to increased brain size and the ability of humans to successfully migrate and colonize have also been proposed. Many of these ideas hit at the very core of what it means to be human, and a critical and integrated look at the archaeological record is required to fully evaluate them. NSF-funded research will contribute to this important issue by documenting how competition with large carnivores dictated where and how often early humans had access to large mammal resources. These data will then be utilized to evaluate many of the above-mentioned models.
This research will contribute to an edited volume aimed at providing archaeologists with the single largest database available for testing models of human subsistence in the early Pleistocene. Such data will also be useful to educators at all levels, who depend on an accurate compilation of the primary fossil data to present these issues to a wider audience. Finally, the author will gain valuable training in archaeological methods.
