By Land or by Sea: How Did Early Humans Access Key Brain-Building Nutrients?

[HuckleB]

Experts debate the origins of fatty acids in our ancestors’ diets
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/by-land-or-by-sea-how-did-early-humans-access-key-brain-building-nutrients/

"Omega fatty acids, including docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, are key to brain health and most likely helped to drive the evolution of the modern human brain. But how did early humans access these vital nutrients? The answer is a matter of some debate.

For nearly two decades archaeologist Curtis W. Marean, associate director of Arizona State University’s Institute of Human Origins, has overseen excavations at a site called Pinnacle Point on South Africa’s southern coast, near where a newly discovered early human species, Homo naledi, was recently unearthed. His work there suggests that sometime around 160,000 years ago, during a glacial period known as Marine Isotope Stage 6 (MIS6), humans made a significant shift in their eating habits, moving from foraging for terrestrial plants, animals and the occasional inland fish to relying on the rich, predictable shellfish beds in the area.

Marean believes this change occurred when early humans learned to exploit the bimonthly spring tides. And to do so, he says, our brains were already fairly well evolved. “Accessing the marine food chain could have had huge impacts on fertility, survival and overall health, including brain health,” Marean explains, in part because of the high return on omega-3 fatty acids. But before MIS6, he speculates, hominins would have had access to plenty of brain-healthy terrestrial nutrition, including by feeding on animals that consumed omega-3-rich plants and grains.

Others disagree, at least in part. “I’m afraid the idea that ample DHA was available from the fats of animals on the savanna is just not true,” says psychiatrist Michael A. Crawford of Imperial College London. “The animal brain evolved 600 million years ago in the ocean and was dependent on DHA and compounds essential to the brain such as iodine, which is also in short supply on land. To build a brain, you would need building blocks that were rich at sea and on rocky shores.”


..."

----------------------------------------------------------------

[Tikki]

1. I think Curtis Marean is on to something.

The old saying..."We are what we eat" is also, what we are curious enough to try to eat
and how we survived what we ate.

THANKS....for this article.

Tikki

[HuckleB]

2. Any time.

It is interesting stuff, on many levels, at least to me.