The fact is we have very little way of knowing what they ate, just hints
from things like the shape of teeth, scratch patterns on teeth etc. But we
do know that we eat meat and that all our more recent ancestors did. Someone
had to start it sometime.

To argue that australopithicines did not eat meat because their teeth were
the wrong shape is simply to ignore the fact that every other primate does
eat meat, even if only bugs. And they eat as much meat as they can get their
hands on. Chimps, with very thick, blunt vegetarian teeth eat meat without
problems, tearing it off the hunk with sideways jerks of the head, just like
dogs do.

Some also argue that our ancestors were too dumb to hunt collectively,
ignoring that far less intelligent lions and wolves manage it easily,
setting up drives and ambushes. So our ancestors were just barely bright
enough to scavange carcasses and catch the occasional mouse. Sorry, that
looks like determining the desired result then making up a fancy theory to
explain it, to me. A 'just so' story for the vegetarians.


>
> Schaller and Lowther claimed that Australopithecines "ate a large number
> of
> small animals and were scavengers; they ate the remains of any large
> animals
> they could find, and therefore were able to secure a large amount of
> meat."
> (H. Leon Abrams, Jr., MA, EDS, Associate Professor Emeritus of
> Anthropology,
> sourcing Schaller, George B and Gordon Lowther, "The Relevance of
> Carnivore
> Behavior to the Study of Early Hominids," Southwest J Anthro, 25:307-41,
> 1969.)
>
>