Former Anthropology major Dr. Jennifer Leichliter ’08 was recently published in Science, the world’s leading journal on scientific research and discovery. In their article “Australopithecus at Sterkfontein did not consume substantial mammalian meat,” Leichliter and her colleagues argue that early human ancestors may have had primarily vegetarian diets. Leichliter is the second author on the article and the researchers are part of the Emmy Noether Group for Hominin Meat Consumption, which is led by Dr. Tina Lüdecke.
Leichliter is a post-doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) in Mainz, Germany. Her research investigates the hypothesis that the incorporation of animal-based foods into the diets of our very early human ancestors (hominins) played a significant role in driving important evolutionary events such as the expansion of brain size. Leichliter and her colleagues at MPIC analyzed the chemistry of tiny amounts of organic material preserved in the tooth enamel of one of our early human ancestors, Australopithecus, to reconstruct their diet. Using nitrogen isotopes in tooth enamel, she and her colleagues determined that Australopithecus at Sterkfontein, a paleoanthropological site in South Africa, did not regularly eat meat. In fact, their research shows that these hominins may have been mostly vegetarian.
Leichliter first became interested in Anthropology after taking Primate Ecology with Dr. Krista Fish ’97, Associate Professor and Chair of CC’s Anthropology Department. She completed her Bachelor’s in Anthropology with a thesis focused on the Evolution of Human Endurance running under the supervision of Dr. Christina Torres-Rouff, and graduated magna cum laude. Leichliter’s experiences at CC significantly shaped her love of science and nature and she has remained involved with CC since graduating. She taught biological anthropology courses at CC as a visiting professor in 2017, standing in for Fish during her sabbatical and has ongoing collaborations with CC faculty including Dr. Henry Fricke in the Department of Geology.
Fish says that it is a huge deal for Leichliter to be published in Science. “Our department is so excited and proud of Jen,” Fish says. To Fish’s knowledge, Leichliter is the first Anthropology alum to be published in the journal.
After graduating from CC, Leichliter saw her two paths as attending medical school or doing a PhD in Biological Anthropology. She decided on the latter and was accepted at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she completed a PhD in Anthropology with Dr. Matt Sponhiemer. She was especially interested in the palaeoecological context of early hominin evolution in Africa.
“CC is near and dear to my heart, and I loved my time there,” Leichliter says. “In fact, my CC roommate is my best friend to this day, and we lived together for another several years during graduate school.”
After she completed her PhD, Leichliter worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Applied and Analytical Paleontology at the Institute of Geosciences at Johannes Gutenberg University and conducted research as a visiting scientist in the Climate Geochemistry Department at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
The research by Leichliter and her colleagues has received a lot of media coverage and has been featured by the BBC Science in Action, Science Podcast, and NPR, as well as some German-based outlets. Science News and Reuters also published stories about this research.
Readers can visit the Emmy Noether Group for Hominin Meat Consumption website to learn more about Leichliter’s research.