Quote:
Originally Posted by ape descendant
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That's the wonderful thing about human evolution, our ideas are constantly changing and being updated with the new available data. Of course you're going to find loads of sources on the hypothesis of meaty encephalisation because it's pretty much the oldest one out there. The food processing hypothesis, on the other hand, is still in its infancy (evidence of food processing, after all, doesn't preserve quite as well as beautifully cut-marked bones), and because it lacks any juicy images of
Homo erectus ripping animals open the media has been a bit slower latching onto it. Also you might notice that the most recent article you posted also throws in the cooking thing is a rather vital part of the current meat-eating theory, so hah. But anyway...
Some further reading
Firstly, search for the books "Catching fire: how cooking made us human" by Richard Wrangham (there's a pdf on google scholar) and "Fire: the spark that ignited human evolution" by Frances D. Burton. Here's a nifty little review of both books from New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...-us-human.html
This is a study on how cooking can lead to more efficient calorie intake, co-authored by Wrangham:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...8&searchtype=a
This is on the new evidence that places an 800,000 year gap between the earliest meat eating and the big-brained genus
Homo coming into existence:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture09248.html
That was just from what I could fish up without too much effort. There's lots more out there if you're willing to search for it.