Turnips Ahoy

There’s a standard carnivorist theory that a transformation around 2 MYears ago of hominids from omnivorous, opportunistic scavengers to dedicated, meat-eating Home Erectus hunters was the necessary and sufficient condition that drove the evolution of larger brains and complex socieities. But there’s also a renegade theory that says that cooked tubers were possibly more pivotal. Pro-male theorists dislike this theory because it would diminish the touted role of strong males within hominid socieities, and they point to a lack of evidence of dedicated hearth fires in human societies before 250 KYears ago. I’d counter that dedicated hearth fires are a social construct, and required a certain level of domestication and population to become permanent enough for large-scale development, reproduction, and fossilization. Early homids could have been opportunistic or intentional brushfire tuber-cookers. Let’s hear it for the humble turnip! It even manages a good explanation for the apparent decrease in Homo Erectus gender dimorphism.

Females attempting to thwart theft would use sexual attractiveness to recruit the best male defenders. This tended to offer plenty of mating opportunities for males and less rivalry among them, hence less selection for large males. Thus, while females evolved a larger body size–either to better produce and nourish babies or to fend off stealing–males stayed about the same size, and the size gap between the sexes narrowed.