The first pastoralists in eastern Africa didn’t suddenly switch to a diet centered only on cows, sheep and goats. Instead, they kept eating a wide mix of foods — fish, wild animals and plants — alongside livestock for at least 1,000 years.
That’s the key finding from new University of British Columbia-led research, with Rice University as a key contributor, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It challenges a long‑held idea that once people begin producing their own food, they quickly narrow down what they eat.
“These early herders didn’t put all their eggs in one basket,” said geochemist Kendra Chritz, lead author and assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences. “They were keeping livestock, but they were also still fishing and hunting and gathering. Their diets were incredibly varied.”
Mary Prendergast, associate professor of anthropology at Rice and a co-author on the study, said the findings offer a rare glimpse into how slowly dietary habits changed over time.
Source : rice.edu