New evidence shows that humans from the Paleolithic Period, or Old Stone Age, relied heavily on meat instead of a vegetarian diet consisting of fruits and vegetables. We might picture a balanced diet when we think about the food of our Pleistocene ancestors but the Paleolithic cuisine was anything but lean and green.Also Read - Here's What a Black Hole Sounds Like, Netizens Call It Horror Movie Music. Watch

Paleolithic Era means Old Stone Age which began 2 million years ago. Homo Sapiens during this time period were Nomads who moved around to find food, water and shelter. Also Read - NASA To Send Naked Pictures Of Humans To Space To Attract Aliens

According to a 2021 study on the diets of our Pleistocene ancestors, homo sapiens and their ancestors were primarily apex predators for a good 2 million years, until roughly 12,000 years ago. The study was done by anthropologists from Israels Tel Aviv University and the University of Minho in Portugal. Also Read - Aliens Had Sexual Encounters With Humans, Left One Woman Pregnant, Claims Pentagon

This comparison is futile, however, because 2 million years ago hunter-gatherer societies could hunt and consume elephants and other large animals while todays hunter gatherers do not have access to such bounty, said Miki Ben-Dor from Israels Tel Aviv University in April last year.

The Pleistocene epoch was a defining time in Earths history for us humans. By the end of it, we were marching our way into the far corners of the globe, outliving every other hominid on our branch of the family tree.

The following graph shows where homo sapiens sat on the spectrum of carnivore to herbivore during the Pleistocene and Upper Pleistocene (UP).

During the ice age, with so much water locked up as ice, ecosystems around the world were vastly different to what we see today. Large beasts roamed the landscape, including mammoths, mastodons, and giant sloths in far greater numbers than we see today.

We decided to use other methods to reconstruct the diet of stone-age humans: to examine the memory preserved in our own bodies, our metabolism, genetics and physical build, said Ben-Dor.

Human behavior changes rapidly, but evolution is slow. The body remembers.

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Study Shows Humans Were Apex Predators 12,000 Years Ago, Hunted Elephants, Other Large Animals - India.com