VOA科学技术2024--New Research Shows How Early Humans Lived Before Agriculture

A recent study shows that people who lived in caves in North Africa had already started to add a lot of plants to their diet about 15,000 years ago.

The researchers examined the remains¹ of a group of people found in a cave near Taforalt in northeastern Morocco. The people were part of the Iberomaurusian culture, which lived in what is now Morocco and Libya from 25,000 to 11,000 years ago. Tests showed the remains were about 15,000 years old. Examinations of teeth and bones showed that the people ate meat from animals called Barbary sheep. But they also ate wild plants such as beans, oats, pine nuts, pistachios and sweet acorns².

Zineb Moubtahij is a doctoral student in archaeology³ at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary⁴ Anthropology⁵ in Germany.

Before this research, Moubtahij said, most scientists believed people from this time mostly ate meat. "However, the evidence from Taforalt demonstrates that plants constituted a big part of the hunter-gatherers' menu," Moubtahij added.

Klervia Jaouen of the French research organization CNRS co-wrote the study. Jaouen said the study "suggests that possibly several populations in the world already started to include substantial amounts of plants in their diet." The group of 13 international researchers published its findings in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

The researchers noted⁶ the people from that time were dependent on wild plants. Agriculture had not been developed yet. They did, however, harvest wild plants in season and store extra amounts to eat later if food was not easily available.

The researchers said the evidence of food storage means the people used the cave for large parts of the year. They did not walk long distances in search of food.

Moubtahij said the researchers did not find evidence of seafood⁷ in the diets of the cave-dwellers. But they did find that babies among the group began to eat plants sooner than scientists first thought.

The remains found in the cave included those of two babies. The researchers studied the baby teeth and found the children were offered plants to eat at about 12 months. They were fully⁹ weaned from breastmilk earlier than researchers thought.

Researchers believe North Africa is an important area for study because it was the last stop before modern humans traveled out of Africa and into other parts of the world.

Words in This Story

cave -n. a natural space that is underground

archaeology -n. the study of ancient human life

constitute -v. to make up or to form

menu -n. a list of things to eat at a restaurant

substantial -adj. an amount of something that is likely to be noticed

dweller⁸ -n. a person who lives in a place

weaned -adj. to no longer drink mother's milk

1 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

2 acorns   

n.橡子，栎实( acorn的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Great oaks from little acorns grow. 万丈高楼平地起。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Welcome to my new website!It may not look much at the moment, but great oaks from little acorns grow! 欢迎来到我的新网站。它现在可能微不足道，不过万丈高楼平地起嘛。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 archaeology   

n.考古学

参考例句：

• She teaches archaeology at the university.她在大学里教考古学。
• He displayed interest in archaeology.他对考古学有兴趣。

4 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

5 anthropology   

n.人类学

参考例句：

• I believe he has started reading up anthropology.我相信他已开始深入研究人类学。
• Social anthropology is centrally concerned with the diversity of culture.社会人类学主要关于文化多样性。

6 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

7 seafood   

n.海产食品，海味，海鲜

参考例句：

• There's an excellent seafood restaurant near here.离这儿不远有家非常不错的海鲜馆。
• Shrimps are a popular type of seafood.小虾是比较普遍的一种海味。

8 dweller   

n.居住者，住客

参考例句：

• Both city and town dweller should pay tax.城镇居民都需要纳税。
• The city dweller never experiences anxieties of this sort.城市居民从未经历过这种担忧。

9 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。