The diet of known human ancestors varies dramatically over time. Strictly speaking, according to evolutionary anthropologists and archaeologists, there is not a single hominin Paleolithic diet. The Paleolithic covers roughly 2.8 million years, concurrent with the Pleistocene, and includes multiple human ancestors with their own evolutionary and technological adaptations living in a wide variety of environments. This fact with the difficulty of finding conclusive evidence often makes broad generalizations of the earlier human diets very difficult. Our pre-hominin primate ancestors were broadly herbivorous, relying on either foliage or fruits and nuts and the shift in dietary breadth during the Paleolithic is often considered a critical point in hominin evolution. A generalization between Paleolithic diets of the various human ancestors that many anthropologists do make is that they are all to one degree or another omnivorous and are inextricably linked with tool use and new technologies. Nonetheless, according to the California Academy of Sciences, "Prior to about 3.5 million years ago, early humans dined almost exclusively on leaves and fruits from trees, shrubs, and herbs—similar to modern-day gorillas and chimpanzees."[1][2]
^Ng, Andrew (4 June 2013). "Early Human Diets". California Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 13 April 2023. Retrieved 13 April 2023.
^Bogdan, Dennis (21 May 2020). "Comment - The End Of Meat Is Here - If you care about the working poor, about racial justice, and about climate change, you have to stop eating animals. - Jonathan Safran Foer". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 3 March 2021. Retrieved 13 April 2023.
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