Re: micro-wear (Re: Lucy partial KWer (Re: Lucy not a knuckle-walker (Re: Obligate Bimanualism


"Mario Petrinovich" <mario.petrinovic1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dk9uod$k6g$3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

> > Soft foods don't leave traces, Mario, eg, even most fruits don't leave
traces, IOW, apith microwear doesn't say anything on whether they ate
fruits, but since all hominoids eat fruits, there's little doubt apiths also
ate fruits, at least seasonally, but *acidic* fruits sometimes leave
microwear traces, eg, P-F.Puech 1984 "Acidic-food choice in Homo habilis at
Olduvai" Curr.Anthrop.25:349-350 (OH-16). --Marc

> Thanks, Marc. -- Mario

P-F.Puech thinks the OH-16 diet included acidic parts of papyrus:
"Cyperaceae fruits were common in H.habilis habitat (Bonnefille 1984).
Ancient Egyptians ate Cyperus papyrus root which was also present at Olduvai
in swamp-margins and river banks" (Puech 1992). "...in the sediments of Beds
I and II ... swamp vegetation is indicated by abundant vertical roots
channels and casts possibly made by some kind of reed. Fossil rhizomes of
papyrus also suggest the presence of marshland and/or shallow water" (Conroy
1990). A likely evolution is this: according to their microwear & to where
they were found, early apiths ate mashland plants (afarensis AL.333 "bones
were found in swale-like features . they died and partially rotted at or
very near this site . this group of hominids was buried in streamside
gallery woodland" (Radosevich cs.1992)).

In their successors in E.Africa after 2 Ma, this had split into 2 diets:
1) one including more woody parts, eg, parts of reeds or sedges: boisei, eg,
Chesowanja: "The fossiliferous sediments were deposited in a lagoon .
Abundant root casts . suggest that the embayment was flanked by reeds and
the presence of calcareous algae indicates that the lagoon was warm and
shallow. Bellamya and catfish are animals tolerant of relatively stagnant
water..." (Carney cs.1971),
2) one more omnivorous: habilis (apith IMO, possibly not Homo), see above.

--Marc


.

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