Did cooking food drive human evolution?

[bascule]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/books/27garn.html?pagewanted=2&_r=3

 

This was a rather interesting story about a theory that cooking shaped human evolution. It allowed our digestive tracts to become simpler and use less energy, in addition to enabling our smaller jaws. The extra energy no longer needed by our digestive tract and the elimination of muscle anchor points used by a large jaw allowed our brains to expand.

 

Pretty awesome.

[Phi for All]

It's easy to see the whole range of benefits. Cooking also requires time and cooperation, a division of labor which allowed us to duplicate our efforts and specialize.

 

Now I'm hungry....

[CDarwin]

It's another attempt at an umbrella hypothesis, trying to explain everything "human" with a single big change. I don't see anyone doing that for any other mammal. I don't think there are many complex umbrella theories for how mice acquired their mice-ness. Cooking probably had its role in human evolution, but the trend toward smaller jaws began long before the archaeological record gives any hint of the presence of controlled fire, and it may not have even been present in time to account the expansion of the hominid brain in Homo erectus, which Wrangam is assuming.

[GDG]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/books/27garn.html?pagewanted=2&_r=3

 

This was a rather interesting story about a theory that cooking shaped human evolution. It allowed our digestive tracts to become simpler and use less energy, in addition to enabling our smaller jaws. The extra energy no longer needed by our digestive tract and the elimination of muscle anchor points used by a large jaw allowed our brains to expand.

 

Pretty awesome.

 

My recollection is that neanderthals had massive jaws & jaw muscles, and still had a higher cranial capacity than us modern humans: in other words, I don't think smaller jaws was necessary for brain expansion.

 

My guess is that the main advantage was making more food available, i.e., cooking renders some foods edible that otherwise aren't. (For example, don't eat raw tapioca or asparagus, and mushrooms require cooking in order to extract any food value from the chitin in their cell walls.) Cooking naturally led to outdoor BBQs (indeed, the outdoor BBQ was probably the first form of cooking), which necessarily required the invention of beer, upon which all civilization is based :rolleyes:

[ecoli]

On the other hand, they maybe confusing cause and effect.

 

I would agree that there's a possible link between evolution and cooking food, but the article implies that it's the fundamental reason. I would tend to disagree based on lack of evidence. Ok so we get more energy from food... but so what? How does that lead to complex social group formations?