Anthropologists use
the term subsistence pattern, or subsistence base, to refer to
sources of food and the way it is obtained. A clear measure
of success in human evolution has been the progressive development
of new food getting techniques and the inclusion of new food
sources. These measures have made it possible for humanity to
increase in numbers from a few thousand australopithecines in
Africa 3 million years ago to perhaps hundreds of thousands of Homo
erectus by 1/2 million years ago. This trend of expanding and
diversifying subsistence patterns continues to the present and, in
part, is responsible for our burgeoning world population of 6
billion people.
The
australopithecines and early transitional humans were primarily
wild plant food collectors and occasional scavengers of meat and
eggs. By the time of Homo erectus, hunting and carcass
scavenging were apparently becoming much more common. The
evidence of this change in subsistence pattern can be seen
especially at late Homo erectus sites such as Zhoukoudian.
Literally tens of thousands of fragmentary food refuse bones were
found there. They came from pigs, sheep, rhinoceros, buffalo,
and especially deer. In addition, there were large numbers of
bones from small animals including birds, turtles, rabbits,
rodents, and fish as well as the shells of oysters, limpets, and
mussels. Some of these bones ended up in the cave at
Zhoukoudian as a result of large carnivorous animals rather than
humans, but there is sufficient evidence to suggest that by 400,000
years ago, some Homo erectus were exploiting virtually every animal
in their environment for food. They undoubtedly were
harvesting vast amounts of wild plant foods as well. It would
be a mistake to assume that Homo erectus had become an efficient
specialized big game hunter. That development did not occur until
more advanced Homo sapiens had evolved, several hundred thousand
years later.
