Prehistory:A New "Paleo" Diet

Entrance to the South African cave where the find was made • ASHLEY KRUGER/MEDIA SERVICE

It was believed that prehistoric people ate meat, fruits and oilseeds. However, here is South Africa inviting us to review the famous “Paleolithic diet”, after the discovery of a food that we thought was banned until today:our ancestors were already cooking tubers! It is in the Border Cave, a rock shelter located in the province of Kwazulu-Natal, on the border with Swaziland, that a South African and French team, with Francesco d'Errico, researcher at the CNRS ( University of Bordeaux), found small charred remains of rhizomes, which are the underground stems of certain plants. In total, about fifty charred rhizomes of the genus Hypoxis were identified through scanning electron microscopy. And they are 170,000 years old!

The meal, a social fact

These rhizomes are rich in carbohydrates, and therefore in energy value. Only cooking makes them easy to chew and digest, and allows a certain amount to be consumed. Furthermore, Hypoxis angustifolia is evergreen, and therefore visible all year round. The plant, which still exists in Yemen, suggests that it once also grew in wetter areas. To extract the rhizomes from the ground, our ancestors used wooden sticks:one of them was discovered in 2012 and dated to 40,000 years. The members of the group would then bring these rhizomes back to the cave to cook and eat them. Food was therefore shared, transforming the meal into a social and cultural fact.

After East Africa, we must therefore reckon with the south of this continent to trace the thread of the history of humanity. Recently, an international team of researchers published a study combining paleoclimatic and genetic data:it showed that Homo sapiens which appeared 200,000 years ago in Botswana would have lived there for 70,000 years, before spreading throughout the continent. The study made the region the cradle of modern man, but it still remains to be confirmed. Perhaps there were lineages as old in other parts of Africa, but still ignored in the absence of DNA study.