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The Physical Characteristics of Humans
- Page 15 -
Judging from our unspecialized and less than robust teeth and jaws, one might conclude that we humans have to get by on a quite restricted diet. Without cultural techniques, our anatomy would limit us to soft foods like fruits and berries and an occasional root, supplemented with birds' eggs and insects. This, in fact, is the kind of diet that probably sustained Australopithecus afarensis, our distant relative. One would not suspect, from examining our jaws and teeth, or any other aspect of our bodies, that human beings are the most ferocious and successful predators on the planet, and that we regularly eat not only the flesh of the largest creatures still living on Earth, but consume tough grains and nuts and rough plant materials as well.
This is point worth considering carefully. As we evolved, our anatomy by itself ceased to predict our actual life-style. Or, to put it another way, we are not limited by our anatomy in the way that most creatures are. It is true that we are restricted to fairly soft foods. But we kill and butcher large animals with tools and process their tough flesh over heat (cooking) until our teeth can manage it. Similarly, we grind grain and other seeds between stones and process it with heat to make it suitable for chewing and digestion. That is, humans overcome their physical limitations with cultural techniques; our culture is, in a way, an extension of and a supplement to our anatomy. This is an important lesson from our teeth and jaws.
It is worth noting that other primates, such as baboons and chimps, like the taste of flesh and occasionally hunt. But in contrast to humans, they seem unable to digest meat.
