Giant eagles hunted human ancestors in South Africa 2,8 million years ago, according to BBC News reporting on fossil evidence from the period.
A three-year-old Australopithecus africanus child, known as the Taung Child, fell victim to an aerial predator in the southern African savannah. Puncture marks beneath the fossil’s eye sockets match the strike patterns of modern crowned eagles, bbc.com reported.
The Stone Age required early humans to share habitats with mammoths, mastodontes, giant ground sloths, and saber-toothed cats.
Scott McGraw examined the remains of more than 600 modern primates killed by crowned eagles in the Taï Forest in Ivory Coast. The primatologist at Ohio State University found that several primate skulls exhibited lesions on the orbital floor.
An investigator inspected the Taung Child fossil and found identical bone damage. “In other words, the eagle had torn out the eyes, either by pecking them or by ripping them out with a talon,” McGraw told bbc.com.
McGraw argued that raptors regularly preyed on early humans, driving evolutionary selection.
Antipredator pressures from birds, leopards, hyenas, and giant crocodiles shaped both human anatomy and behavior. Upright bipedal walking improved the field of view for spotting airborne threats, while group living provided mutual protection.
“There is safety in numbers,” McGraw told bbc.com regarding the necessity of larger social units. Ambush hunting tactics by stealthy raptors required constant vigilance from multiple group members.
McGraw said that primates use distinct alarm calls specifically for raptors, which may serve as precursors to human language.
Ancient human populations in the Americas coexisted with teratornithids, which were massive carnivorous birds with six-meter wingspans. Joanne Cooper, senior curator of avian anatomical collections at the Natural History Museum in London, explained that these birds used thermal updrafts to launch into flight.
In New Zealand, the extinct Haast’s eagle targeted giant flightless moas that reached four meters in height. Cooper described the Haast’s eagle as “essentially a flying tiger” capable of attacking human children with ten-centimeter talons.
“When these birds fly over a place, they cast a shadow; and, culturally speaking, they cast a very long shadow right across the world,” Cooper told bbc.com.
Pleistocene climate fluctuations began 2,6 million years ago and shifted ecosystem conditions across the globe. Glaciers receded by 11,700 years ago as large mammals and giant raptors died out.
Cooper said that human expansion coincided with the disappearance of roughly 95 percent of all megafauna. “Either we were trying to eat them, or we were in competition with them,” Cooper told bbc.com.
