It was with enormous amusement that I read two opposing statements on the subject of what a caveman did and didn’t eat. There were the meat eaters on one hand, who stated that man ate few vegetables and mostly meat. The vegetarians had a contrary view. Both arguments were well substantiated and too fixated in independent philosophies to hold any merit. So, to get down to icky basics, and this is icky.

In the beginning there was a primate, who was more primate than man. Think chimpanzee, here. Given that it was going bald, it did need some sort of coverings, but the coverings came at a later date to dietary needs when the baldness and the cooling climate made this more imperative. Go look up the diet of a modern, wild chimp. This species isn’t the cute little fluffy who eats bananas and any other fruit going. This species will eat more or less anything, including maggots, ants, beetles, larva, rodents, reptiles, fish and  amphibians . If they could catch it and kill it, or at least eat it alive without a struggle, then they do and did. Chimps have developed tools for braining lesser creatures and breaking into nuts. They are omnivores, as are we.

Man didn’t suddenly emerge as the bison/antelope hunter, nor did he suddenly start digging for underground for root vegetables.  There are humans born now without canine teeth. This doesn’t automatically mean they are vegetarians. There are humans born now with larger canine teeth, but this doesn’t mean they prefer a liquid diet. It is just nature, doing her thing and trying to buck the odds. Bad luck for the dinosaurs there, as even nature can’t predict a honking great meteor hitting the planet.