TIL Neanderthal dental plaque shows that there was no such thing as a typical Paleo diet. Some ate mostly meat, and some others are entirely vegetarian.

Not really. I'm sure this will get buried, but the things human need to survive in the short term are 1. Water and 2. Carbs. The neolithic revolution allowed people to create a lot of carb heavy food which they could generally live on although somewhat stunted and malnourished. Humans can survive for a long time eating only cereals and tubers, but not very healthily. The paleolithic diet is about avoiding those cereals which supposedly were not available before the neolithic era.

It's kind of a stupid diet though because most problems arose from the fact farmers and peasants didn't have access to meat which has all essential amino acids, and is a nutritional catch all.

It is possible to get all essential amino acids and micronutrients from plants alone, but it is hard now and impossible in the past because they did not have the large variety of staple crops and food choices we do now.

/r/todayilearned Thread Parent Link - theatlantic.com