Early humans and the balance of power: Homo habilis as prey

Abstract

It has been argued that Homo habilis was responsible for the earliest episodes of stone-tool making, animal butchery, meat eating, and the reversal of the predator–prey relationship with carnivores. Assessing the empirical foundation of these premises is of utmost relevance to understanding the role that H. habilis played in our evolution. A powerful position for H. habilis, regarding carnivore–hominin interactions, requires that this hominin could cope with predation hazards. This should be reflected in bones of H. habilis impacted by scavengers instead of flesh-eating predators. Determining carnivore taxon-specific agency on the modification of hominin bones is crucial for solving this dichotomy. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools, through computer vision (CV) methods, have proven successful at differentiating carnivore taxa using images of bone surface modifications (BSMs). The application of CV methods to the remains of the holotype and other specimens of H. habilis documents with unprecedented reliability that Olduvai Hominin (OH) 7 and OH 65 were consumed by leopards. This has consequences for our understanding of the role played by H. habilis on the emergence of the Oldowan archeological record, and of the evolution of behaviors that led to a fully terrestrial adaptation and a shift in the balance of power between carnivorans and hominins.