Early Humankind

Vegetarianism is a cultural and social, rather than a biological, phenomenon. Anatomically and physiologically, the digestive organs of the human species are designed for both animal and plant foods. Moreover, a global cross-cultural survey demonstrates the fact that all cultures, past and present, have revealed a preference for at least some form of animal fat and protein and that none have ever been totally vegetarian (Abrams 1987b: 207–23).

Current paleoanthropological research indicates that humans have been on this earth for some 3 to 4 million years. For over 99 percent of that time, humans were hunters and gatherers (Cohen 1977: 15; Johanson and White 1979: 321–30). From the Australopithecines to the inception of agriculture, humans gradually developed more efficient tools to obtain food, especially for hunting game. Homo erectus pursued large game, and early Homo sapiens, the late Paleolithic humans, were even more dedicated in this regard.

Indeed, the availability of game may well have dictated human settlement patterns. As population pressure mounted in Africa, the original home of humankind, herds of game dwindled, forcing people further afield to follow other herds. This ultimately led to human settlements in Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Australia – in all of the continents except Antarctica.

About 10,000 years ago, beginning in the Middle East, people finally started to raise plant foods because of their own growing number, on the one hand, and because so many game animals were scarce or had been hunted to extinction, on the other. And with sedentary agriculture came political organization and formal religions.