The Evolution of Hominin Diets: Integrating Approaches to the Study of Paleolithic Subsistence Jean-Jacques Hublin and Michael P. Richards (eds.) Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2009, 300 pp. (hardback), $129.00. ISBN-13: 9781402096983. Reviewed by JAMIE L. CLARK Department of Anthropology, PO Box 750336, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75205-1437, USA; jamieclark@smu.edu T he Evolution of Hominin Diets is comprised of 20 papers that were initially presented as part of a symposium held at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthro- pology in 2006. The papers refect a wide variety of ap- proaches to studying hominin diet, ranging from tradi- tional faunal analyses to lithic and fossil perspectives on the origins of projectile technology. In the brief preface to the volume, the editors express the hope that the book will serve two purposes—frst, to provide an up-to-date ac- count of research on human dietary evolution; and second, to provide an introduction to aspects of research on the topic that are being undertaken in felds that may not be the reader’s own. With a few minor exceptions, the volume succeeds at both of these goals, and as such, it will serve as a useful resource to anyone interested in human evolution more broadly. The book opens with a number of chapters that utilize data from studies of living populations in order to draw in- ferences about ancient hominin diet. Hohmann (Chapter 1) provides a broad but concise overview on the diets of non- human primates—as someone not familiar with this litera- ture, I found his review both useful and accessible. Given what we know about non-human primate diets, Hohmann suggests that certain behaviors such as food sharing, hunt- ing, meat eating, and provisioning were likely already in place by the time Pan and Homo split. Snodgrass and colleagues (Chapter 2) explore the ener- getics of encephalization, using data from modern species and hominid fossils in order to test several hypotheses that address the relationships between dietary quality, brain size, and body mass/composition. The paper is well done and should be considered required reading for anyone in- terested in the topic; among their most interesting results was the fnding that non-human primates actually have similar sized guts relative to other mammals, which seems to be at odds with the expectations of the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis (Aiello and Wheeler 1995). Lucas et al. (Chapter 3) investigate the relationship be- tween dietary change and the reduction in tooth size evi- denced during the Paleolithic. Because foods that have been cooked or otherwise processed often require less chew- ing, Lucas and colleagues propose that in order to avoid overwhelming the gut, the rate of oral processing must be slowed—and a reduction in tooth size is a primary way to accomplish this. While the authors admit that this is not the only possible pathway by which a “food avalanche” to the gut could be avoided, they are right to point out that a con- sideration of digestive processes and the role of the mouth in digestion can provide important insights on the impacts of dietary change on human evolution. Lindeberg (Chapter 4) reviews what we know about human nutritional requirements (in terms of vitamins/min- erals, protein, fats, etc.) in order to try to reconstruct what foods may have been part of the ancestral hominin diet, concluding that humans are well adapted to a wide variety of meat and plant foods. It seemed to me that this paper might have benefted from a broader comparative perspec- tive—for example, Lindeberg addressed the fact that many modern populations require iodine-enriched foods in order to meet the recommended daily intake. This raises questions about how early hominins obtained sufcient iodine—per- haps data on primate nutrition would be informative? An additional three chapters focus on reconstructing the diets of a variety of early hominin species. Alemseged and Bobe (Chapter 13) utilize paleoenvironmental data in order to take on the claim that Paranthropus was more spe- cialized in its habitat preference (and thus its diet) than was Homo. Using data from the Shungara Formation in Ethio- pia, they propose that both species relied upon similarly diverse habitats, but may have exploited diferent fallback foods, with Homo relying on animal resources from wood- ed environments and Paranthropus relying upon the hard foods found in more open habitats. It will be interesting to see if this patern holds in other regions in which both spe- cies have been identifed. Sponheimer and Dufour (Chapter 18) review a variety of arguments relating to the timing and signifcance of in- creased dietary breadth, focusing in particular on the con- tribution of biogeochemical data to these debates. Of par- ticular note is their summary of the carbon isotope data for early hominin diets; based on the δ 13 C values, Sponheimer and Dufour argue that Paranthropus, early Homo, and Aus- tralopithecus all obtained a signifcant portion of their diets from C 4 (savanna) resources. This was found to be in strik- ing contrast to chimpanzees, as isotopic data from savan- na-dwelling chimpanzees show no evidence for the con- sumption of C 4 foods. The authors thus suggest that early hominins had in fact broadened their diet in such a way that they could survive in habitats too open and xeric for chimpanzees. Interestingly, the conclusions drawn by Sponheimer and Dufour contrast with those of Schoeninger (Chapter 17), who analyzed carbon isotope data from a range of C 3 - feeding species (primarily primates) which occupy habitats PaleoAnthropology 2009: 276−278. © 2009 PaleoAnthropology Society. All rights reserved. ISSN 1545-0031 doi:10.4207/PA.2009.REV79