Shift In Human Ancestors’ Diet Earlier Than Previously Thought

Plants and Animals





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Early humans, such as Lucy (pictured), probably started eating grass-based diets around 3.8 million years ago. Carlos Lorenzo/Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The shift that our ancestors made from relying mainly on trees and shrubs for food, to searching for grub on the ground and eating more of a grass-based diet could have helped them fare better in a changing environment. New evidence points to this event occurring much earlier than was previously thought – about 400,000 years earlier, to be precise.