Human Interactions with Scavengers, Like Vultures, Drove Our Evolution

Our ancient human ancestors may have had more of a relationship with animal scavengers than we thought. Scientists have discovered that interactions that humans had with vultures, hyenas, lions and other scavengers have been crucial in their evolution.

In order to learn more about the relationship that humans share with scavengers, researchers examined recent arguments that have been published in scientific journals. Currently, scavengers are facing extinction due to habitat destruction and climate change, so learning about the relationship they share with people is important for better understanding how their disappearance might impact the environment.

"The way that humans have acquired meat since it became a fundamental component of our diet has changed from the consumption of dead animals to hunting live ones, the domestication of wild animals and finally intensive exploitation," write the researchers in a news release. "In each of these periods, humans have been closely related to other scavengers. At first, the interaction was primarily competitive, but when humans went from eating carrion to generating it, scavengers highly benefited from the relationship. Today, humans benefit the most from the multiple services provided by scavengers."

So what kind of services do scavengers provide? The benefits to humans range from the provision of food, since carrion was more easily found if other scavengers were feeding from it, to the control of infectious diseases.

That's not all, either. Humankind's relationship with scavengers probably also stimulated language development and cooperative partnership due to the selective pressures associated with consumption of carrion.

The findings reveal a little bit more about humans' relationship with scavengers in the past. This particular interaction helped spur and drive human evolution, and shows how scavengers played an integral part in our past.

The findings are published in the journal BioScience.