The absence of amylase gene duplication in Neanderthals and Denisovans suggests eating tubers is a recent human adaptation.

“but I think the fact that it's shared across all these different hunter-gatherers that we I don't know when our most recent common ancestor with them is but I'm guessing it's got it be almost as old as the most recent common ancestor of all humanity”

“but it means to me that however high the amount of animal foods in the past in our past diet was the contribution of starch to the diet must have been if it was significant to derive a nearly complete selective sweep for the duplication of a starch specific gene it must have been meaningful enough to say that that diet was not purely carnivorous that's how I see it”

“the other really interesting thing about the salivary amylase duplication is that for the vast majority of our evolution as humans we didn't have it right Neanderthals don't have it that if sonís don't have it Homo erectus doesn't have it Homo habilis didn't have it home Ohio very interested isn't at it and to me that suggests that we were not eating many starches up until sixty-two thousand 70,000 years ago”

“the absence of the amylase gene duplication in the inner Thals and Denisovans to me is pretty robust evidence that eating tubers is a very recent adaptation in human evolution”

“only homo sapiens has amylase gene duplications so all homo sapiens have an amylase gene duplication and Neanderthal and Denisovans do not so this to me suggests very clearly that we don't know when this amylase gene duplication happened amylase is a is an enzyme in the saliva that breaks down carbohydrates and prepares them for digestion in the stomach making them a little more bioavailable it's basically an indication that at that time we left Africa we were probably eating some tubers”