ABSTRACT
The flip side of the Man the Hunter paradigm proposes that meat eating was critical for the enlargement of hominid brains tracked in the fossil record. A list of ancestral fossils showing evidence of predation continues to accumulate. Ardipithecus ramidus, the hominid remains found in the 1990s at Aramis, Ethiopia, by the distinguished team of fossil hunters Tim White, Gen Suwa, and Berhane Asfaw, appears on the messy bush of human evolution. Arguments for dietary or ritual cannibalism in the American Southwest prehistoric pueblo cultures have been widely accepted based on modification of human bones that resembles the defleshing of large mammals for food. Naturally, interpretations of fossil evidence vary within academia. While Man the Hunter enjoyed popularity inside the academic community, in the post-1980s period "Man the Scavenger" garnered ardent supporters, most of whom studied fossil assemblages to discern whether hominids, carnivores, or both had stripped flesh from the bones of prey animals.
