Meat eating and human brain evolution

Continuing this post, here are some scientific articles on meat-eating and the evolution of the human brain. While we can't reduce consciousness to the brain it seems a bigger and more complex brain, one more evolved, is prerequisite for so-called 'higher' consciousness.

This article said: "There is no doubt that human evolution has been linked to meat in many fundamental ways. Our digestive tract is not one of obligatory herbivores; our enzymes evolved to digest meat whose consumption aided higher encephalization and better physical growth. Cooperative hunting promoted the development of language and socialization. [...] Killing animals and eating meat have been significant components of human evolution that had a synergistic relationship with other key attributes that have made us human, with larger brains, smaller guts, bipedalism and language. Larger brains benefited from consuming high-quality proteins in meat-containing diets, and, in turn, hunting and killing of large animals, butchering of carcasses and sharing of meat have inevitably contributed to the evolution of human intelligence in general and to the development of language and of capacities for planning, cooperation and socializing in particular."

Another article on human evolution and meat eating:


"'Only two types of primate survived the climate catastrophe,' says Domínguez-Rodrigo­. There was a 'plant-processing machine on the one hand and a meat-eating machine on the other hand', he says. 'The meat-eating machine evolved a bigger brain. The meat-eating machine became us.' However the key question becomes how much meat should a cognitive-health-conscio­us person eat. Too little can delay development and cognition. But too much, particularly if it is low quality and mass produced, is associated with other health concerns, such as heart disease and cancer, along with memory problems later in life."