Eating fish helped man’s brain grow

Sculptures of the human revolution outside the National Museum of Kenya. Scientists have discovered that early man started eating fish, crocodiles and turtles more than two million years ago. 

In Summary

• Evolution of early man was fuelled by discovery of aquatic food 2m years ago

Scientists have discovered that early man started eating fish, crocodiles and turtles more than two million years ago.

This, they say, explains what may have helped fuel the evolution of the human brain at about that time.

Scientists at the National Museums of Kenya and colleagues from the United States, UK, Australia and South Africa say man may have stumbled on the now highly commercialised omega-3 or essential fatty acids many years ago in Turkana.

Archaeologists working at a site discovered in 2004 near Lake Turkana, unearthed evidence that our ancestors ate a wide variety of animals including fish, turtles and even crocodiles in what today is increasingly called “brain food.”

The study appeared on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Earlier, a press statement from George Washington University in the US said the early human’s brain size increased dramatically about two million years ago.

Growing a large brain requires an enormous investment in calories and nutrients and places considerable costs on the mother and developing infant.

Anthropologists have long considered meat in the diet as key to the evolution of a larger brain. However, until now, there was no evidence that human ancestors this long ago had incorporated into their diets animal foods from lakes and rivers.

The scientists say they excavated thousands of fossilised bones and stone tools, and were able to determine that at least 10 individual animals were butchered by early humans at the Koobi Fora research area on the eastern side of Lake Turkana in Marsabit District.

“Many of these bones showed evidence of cut marks made by early human ancestors as a result of using sharp stone tools to cut meat from the bones or crush long bones to access the fat-rich bone marrow,” says the statement.