Changing Landscapes, Changing Diets: How Fossilized Teeth Reveal Ancient Dietary Shifts

Enquye Negash, a postdoctoral researcher in the Columbian College’s Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, led a new study that documents dietary shifts in herbivores that lived between 1-3 million years ago in Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley. By examining the fossilized teeth of herbivores such as antelopes and pigs, she found a shift away from woody vegetation foods to foods representative of grasses and sedges. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.