AHS12 Miki Ben Dor — Man The Fat Hunter: Animal Fat Shortage as a Driver of Human Evolution
Channel: AncestryFoundation
Date: 2012-12-28

Miki Ben-Dor presenting at the 2nd Annual Ancestral Health Symposium (AHS12).

Man The Fat Hunter: Animal Fat Shortage as a Driver of Human Evolution and Prehistory

Abstract:
Using a bioenergetic approach and physiological, anatomical, archaeological, ethnographic, isotopic, botanical, genetic and zoological evidence my research has identified an obligated animal fat requirement in human nutrition beginning with the Homo erectus.
In a recent paper published PLoS ONE (linked in bio), written in co-operation with researchers from Tel Aviv University: we applied a bioenergetic model to test the hypothesis that shortage of animal fat that developed locally in the Levant 400 thousand years ago due to the disappearance of elephants was an important factor in the evolution of a new modern human lineage.
Presently, we continue with the application of the Obligated Fat Model in an attempt to understand more recent critical developments in humans' existence. Some of our present research results will be reported.
The lecture will also provide an opportunity to recognize the important role that the Paleo/Low Carb/Ancestral community bloggers in general, and some bloggers in particular, have played in the initiation and development of my research.

Bio:
Miki Ben-Dor, M.B.A., is a Doctoral Candidate at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Tel Aviv University (Israel). He blogs in Hebrew at paleostyle.com and has there, over one hundred posts on human nutrition from an evolutionary point of view. He is the lead author on a recently published scientific paper: Man the Fat Hunter: The Demise of Homo erectus and the Emergence of a New Hominin Lineage in the Middle Pleistocene (ca. 400 kyr) Levant.