Read how human nutrition has changed over the past 200 million years of its existence and what conclusions can be drawn in terms of our health and beauty today.
We mate with Neanderthals – The Golden Age begins
When Homo sapiens, the sole surviving humans that now populate the earth, evolved from Homo erectus about 300,000 years ago in Africa, there were no significant changes at first. Although the appearance of Homo sapiens looked very similar to people today, they were at the same culture and technology level as Homo erectus. Homo sapiens originated in Africa and spread all over the world, just like Homo erectus have done it before, and met Neanderthals in Palestine approximately 100,000 years ago for the first time, however, was apparently pushed back by them after a few thousand years of coexistence.
About 75,000 years ago, a volcanic eruption in Asia had a devastating impact on the Earth and substantially cooled the atmosphere worldwide. Apparently, only a few groups of Homo sapiens in Asia and Africa survived the subsequent period of food shortage.
In these tough times, when there was a shortage of big game animals, small groups of Homo sapiens seem to have mainly survived near the seashores where there were plenty of fish and shellfish. It is assumed that our tendency to look at ocean beaches as paradise-like holiday destinations, still remains in our collective memory when these places used to be our “paradise”.
Our species-specific diet of 75.000 years ago: fish and seafood
After population sizes had recovered, Homo sapiens kept spreading further east via Indonesia. They thereby got to meet with the “Hobbits”, the Homo erectus and apparently mated with Java man as well as with Denisovans, who had evolved in Asia from the early Homo erectus groups. Even today, the Melanesian native population of Australasia still shows physical characteristics, especially on teeth, jaws, and facial skull, that reminds us of Homo erectus. Homo sapiens reached the Australia continent at least 45,000 years ago.
At around the same time, Homo sapiens started to spread all over Europe, presumably along the Danube River. In the same way as it happened in Asia, Homo sapiens also mixed with the native European population, the Neanderthals. Therefore, we sometimes have reddish and blond hair as well as blue and gray eyes like the Neanderthals although our ancestors came from Africa and were dark-eyed and black-haired. It is worth noting, that due to the population mixture, almost all people in the world carry genes from different Homo erectus species themselves.
As a result, something happened with Homo sapiens about 45,000 years ago. A culture and technological leap occurred in which the Neanderthals only partially participated once they interchanged with Homo sapiens. It is possible that some Neanderthal versions of genes enabled Homo sapiens to unfold their full potential.
Homo sapiens evolved to a level of culture and technology that can be found in Siberian natives. This was accompanied by a dramatic improvement of hunting techniques. Up until then, hunting mammoths and forest elephants was extremely dangerous and a lot of hunters among Homo sapiens and Neanderthals lost their lives, but by means of atlatls (spear throwers) fashioned with projectile points made of flintstone, allowing them to kill big game animals from a safe distance.
These technological advances enabled the Golden Age to begin as we have been told from ancient legends: Once a week it was now possible to hunt a large animal in a relatively safe manner which was then eaten from nose to tail (including all internal organs containing hormones and enzymes). Apart from that, people hardly ever experienced any type of stress and had time to enjoy the good things in life.
Since there were plenty of animals to be hunted and the fact that older people were also provided with sufficient amounts of animal hormones and enzymes, people enjoyed good health for most of their long life, raised many children and were able to devote themselves to the beautiful sides of life. A boom occurred in arts, magic, and religion. The collective memory, quoted by the ancient Greek poet Hesiod, tells that the Golden Age was populated by people whose hair turned gray, however, did not become old and even at an advanced age still appeared strong and healthy. This is consistent with our experience in treating older patients by means of bioidentical hormones: Although hair turns gray, the body remains in strong and youthful condition.
Our species-specific diet of the Golden Age: mammoths, forest elephants, big game animals including internal organs, fruits, nuts
In the next part you will find out how we were expelled from paradise: After the last Ice Age, approximately 10,000 years ago, the Golden Age came to an end. Glaciers melt, sea levels rise, mammoths and other species of big game animals become extinct worldwide. This leads to far-reaching changes in our lifestyle and nutrition.
DDr. Heinrich, MD