Ancient bone tools suggest apemen ate termites

Ancient bone tools suggest apemen ate termites
REUTERS

JAN 16: More than a million years ago termites were a tasty meal for apemen previously thought to be vegetarians, scientists said on Tuesday.

A fresh analysis of bone tools found in South Africa's renowned Sterkfontein caves showed that the insects were a key source of protein and fat for man's ancient cousins.

"The wear patterns on these fossils are our very first direct evidence linking early humans to a particular food source between one and two million years ago," said Lucinda Backwell, a scientist at the University of Witwatersrand.

"In the past we have only ever speculated on what these early hominids ate," she added.

Backwell and French scientist Francesco D'Errico analysed some of the world's oldest fossil bone tools found in the Sterkfontein caves, where the arm and hand of a 3.3-million-year-old apeman were unearthed last year.

Their findings were published on Tuesday in the Washington-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Scientists had previously thought that a distant cousin of man known as Australopithecus robustus had used the long, sharp bones to dig up tubers.

But they could not explain why traces of a protein-typecarbon, known as C-4, were found in robustus remains.

With the help of computer image analysis and sophisticated microscope techniques, Backwell and D'Errico found that markings on bone tools discovered near robustus remains were not the same as those found on other tools used to dig up tubers.

"Traditionally the robustus apeman was considered avegetarian and not a tool user. But every time we find these tools, we find a lot of these apemen," Backwell said.

SMARTER APEMAN

The scientists said these early hominids were also smarterthan previously thought because they selected bones of a particular size, shape and durability for termite foraging.

"They were looking for a long, dagger-shaped bone and notjust any random shape. That certainly is reflecting cognitive ability," Backwell said.

Their findings also support the ideas of famed aperesearchers Jane Goodall and Louis Leakey who in the 1960s predicted that, like chimpanzees, our early ancestors also foraged for termites.

"This is the first time that anyone has been able todefinitely prove it," said Lee Berger, director of the Palaeo-Anthropology Unit for Research and Exploration at Witwatersrand university.

The Sterkfontein caves near Johannesburg are one of the fewsites in the world where apeman fossils have been discovered and bolster Africa's claim to be the "cradle of humankind."