The Ancestral Diet of the Germanic People

"Julaftonen" by Carl Larsson (1904)

As creatures of evolution we should ideally be consuming a diet consistent with our human biology, which arguably means looking at what our ancestors ate. As someone with predominately Germanic heritage (plus a little bit of Celt) I want to take a look at as many reputable sources as I can to understand what the indigenous diet of the Germanic people is, noting that it will overlap a good deal with the indigenous diet of other Indo-European peoples. 

Before humanity 

Humans are primates belonging to the subgroup known as great apes. Primates are believed to have evolved around 65 million years ago, following the mass extinction event which brought an end to the age of dinosaurs. Apes evolved around 25 million years ago, mostly or exclusively in heavily forested environments. Our primate cousins – monkeys and lesser apes – never really left their homes in the branches and tend to eat mostly leaves and fruit. Other great apes are still animals of the forest but they are bigger and able to roam forest floors. At least 87% of their diet is plant based (especially fruit), supplemented by insects. Chimpanzees, our closest relative, also eat meat. Our lineage separated from the chimpanzee line around 7 million years ago, so it is likely our ancestors have been eating meat (and other parts of animals, such as organs and bone marrow) for millions of years – ie, long before we evolved into modern humans.