A new study suggests that scavenging—the act of eating the meat of dead animals—may have played a much bigger role in human evolution than previously thought.
Researchers from Spain’s National Research Center for Human Evolution (CENIEH) and several other institutions argue that eating carrion wasn’t just a desperate last resort, but an important and reliable survival strategy that helped shape who we are today.
The study, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, brings together insights from paleontology, archaeology, and ecology.
It was led by scientists Ana Mateos and Jesús Rodríguez from CENIEH, who worked with experts from multiple universities and research centers across Spain.
Their work challenges the long-standing view that scavenging was a dangerous and inferior way to get food.
Scavenging: A smarter, easier strategy
According to the researchers, one of the biggest advantages of scavenging is that it requires far less effort than hunting.
Hunting large animals is risky, energy-consuming, and uncertain, while scavenging takes advantage of food that’s already available.
Traditionally, scientists assumed that carrion was too rare, unpredictable, and unsafe to be a dependable food source. But new ecological evidence paints a different picture.
“When large animals die, whether on land or in the sea, they leave behind tons of food,” says Mateos. “This allows many scavenger species to feed together and survive during periods when other food is hard to find.”
In fact, carrion tends to be most available when food resources like plants or smaller prey are scarce. That made scavenging an essential survival tool during tough times for early humans and their ancestors.
Built to scavenge
The study also highlights how humans are physically and behaviorally adapted to scavenging. The highly acidic environment of the human stomach, for example, helps destroy harmful bacteria and toxins often found in decaying meat. Early humans also learned to use fire, which not only made food easier to chew and digest but also killed pathogens.
Our ability to walk long distances efficiently would have been another huge advantage. “Humans can travel great distances with relatively little energy,” Mateos explains. “That made it possible for our ancestors to find enough carrion to survive.”
Even early forms of communication likely helped. Rodríguez notes that primitive language would have allowed early humans to coordinate scavenging efforts—sharing information about where to find carcasses or working together to chase predators away from their kills. “They could throw stones or use simple tools to scare off larger predators and claim the remains,” he says.
Simple stone flakes and hammerstones were also crucial. They let early humans cut through thick hides, scrape off leftover meat, and break open bones to reach the fat and nutrient-rich marrow inside.
A forgotten chapter in human evolution
For decades, scientists debated whether early humans were hunters or scavengers. In the 1960s, when the first evidence of meat-eating appeared in African archaeological sites, researchers assumed that humans must have been skilled hunters. This led to the idea that scavenging was a primitive phase quickly left behind once we learned to hunt.
But this view reflected cultural bias as much as science. Western society often sees scavenging as dirty or inferior, while hunting is seen as noble. However, modern ecology shows that even top predators—like lions, wolves, and eagles—regularly eat carrion.
“Today we know that scavenging is not a shameful behavior,” says Mateos. “It’s a key part of every ecosystem, and many human hunter-gatherer societies still practice it today.”
The researchers conclude that scavenging wasn’t just an early phase of human evolution but a lasting and efficient strategy that complemented both hunting and plant gathering.
As Mateos puts it, “If we’ve long said that eating meat made us human, we can now say that eating carrion made us human too.”
