Reconstructing the Role of Insects in the Diets of Early Hominins

Ultimately the goal of the book is to reconstruct the role of insects over the course of human evolution. The aforementioned behavioral accounts will be combined with fossil evidence to reconstruct past diets and determine the role fulfilled by edible insects. This first paleoanthropology chapter focuses on australopithecines, our early ancestors on the hominin lineage. For these reconstructions, the data presented in the chapter on primates are especially enlightening. Chimpanzees as well as other apes tend to specialize in social insects such as termites and ants, making it likely that our earliest ancestors benefited from this behavior as well.

Edible Insects and the Genus Homo

In this second paleoanthropology chapter, the focus shifts to later human evolution with members of the genus Homo. Over the evolution of our genus, morphology and behaviors emerge that are more similar to our own. In reconstructing the insect portion of the diet for these hominins, present-day foragers provide a better-fit model than nonhuman primates. The genus Homo was the first to colonize outside of Africa, and as humans began to occupy the far reaches of the world, environmental conditions were less suitable for insect eating in some regions over others. Outside of the tropics, the predictability and reliability of insects as a food source is greatly reduced, so the absence of insect eating in these regions today may have a deep history.

Ethnographic Examples of Insect Foraging

Ethnographic examples of entomophagy focus on populations of interest to human behavioral ecologists such that the environment plays a major role in food availability and ultimately reproduction and fitness. Patterns of insect foraging in hunter-gatherer populations and horticulturalists suggest that women tend to forage and eat insects more than men.

Understanding the Ick Factor

An important question to address is why insects are not commonly consumed in Western culture. This chapter investigates global patterns of insect consumption, the psychology of disgust, and the physiological mechanisms of tastes, and determines that there is nothing inherent about insects that make them disgusting. Instead, the presence or absence of edible insects in a culture is best understood as a combination of factors including environment and colonial history.

Going Forward

The last chapter addresses why research on edible insects is not nearly as developed compared to meat, and why this imbalance leads to underrepresentation. In paleoanthropology, there is abundant research on hunting and meat eating while other foods are essentially ignored. This impartiality leads to the portrayal of our ancestors as being primarily carnivorous, which in recent years has been incorporated into the “paleo diet” trend. As a popular weight loss program, the paleo diet emphasizes eating real and natural foods that would have been available to our “cavemen” ancestors. The emphasis on real food is a direct response to our over-industrialized food systems, which produce widely available, inexpensive, unhealthy food options. However, another problem with our modern food system is that it is unsustainable and livestock cultivation is the primary culprit for resource waste and greenhouse gas emissions. We should be looking to reduce our meat intake, not increase it. In this regard, edible insects provide an appealing sustainability option: they are efficient to raise and provide the same nutritional benefits as traditionally raised livestock.

Insect Eating in Nonhuman Primates

Species in each family within the primate order consume insects. Although some species specialize in eating insects, considered insectivores, many primates utilize insects as a supplement to their diets otherwise comprised of a combination of leaves and fruit. Patterns of insectivory in these “non-insectivorous” primates may help unveil how eating insects may attenuate nutritional inadequacies. Interestingly, there is good evidence of female primates consuming more insects than their male counterparts. This pattern is well recognized for tool-using chimpanzees and orangutans, but similar evidence from other primates such as capuchins and mangabeys suggests that this is not related to difference in tool using preferences between the sexes but rather may be due to different dietary requirements.

Nutrition and Reproductive Ecology

Chapter 4 reviews the interplay between nutrition and natural selection. Much of the discussion of evolution of the human diet revolves around energetic requirements because the increased demand is easy to identify as brain and body size increase over our lineage. However, it is important to be reminded that nutrients have other roles besides yielding energy, primarily regulatory and structural. These latter functions are especially important from the viewpoint of female pregnancy and child rearing. This incongruence of reproductive demands between the sexes lends to the discussion of the evolution of sexual division of labor in human societies, suggesting that some of the differences in resource acquisition may be related to different nutritional needs.

The Potential for Future Discovery

Reconstructing the behavior of past hominins has numerous limitations. Scientific discovery requires evidence-based research and the paleoanthropological record only preserves fragments of past ways of life. However, the models created here with data collected from extant populations establish hypotheses and predictions for this hominin behavior, which is the important first step in the scientific process. This chapter investigates how future research can inform on the ancient use of insects as food. First, the models presented here were created from currently available data; more research that directly investigates the insect portion of extant diets and increased standardization for the reporting of data will help to refine these data models. Second, numerous analytical methods are available for the reconstruction of past diets and these are explored regarding their potential for informing on hominin use of edible insects. Once the dietary use of insects becomes a more established research focus, evidence will begin revealing itself.

Introduction to Entomophagy Anthropology

Chapter 1 introduces the key players currently and historically involved in what may be called the entomophagy movement towards more sustainably produced animal protein. There have also been a number of advocates for the study of edible insects in the field of biological anthropology whose contributions have not been as broadly accepted as those who reconstruct hunting and meat eating. This chapter introduces readers to the study of insects as food in the field of anthropology and the challenges of reconstructing the use of a food source in the past that does not easily leave a signal in the archaeological record.