Recently discovered fossil records suggest that ancient humans living in China may have regularly eaten giant pandas as part of their diet. The Institute of Three Gorges Paleoanthropology lead scientist Wei Guangbiao says the fossils, discovered in the modern-day city of Chongqing, contain tool markings. “We have studied many samples of panda fossils excavated in Chongqing from the sites where humans once lived,” Wei said . A large number of them showed that pandas were slashed to death by man.” However, prehistoric giant pandas were both smaller and much more abundant than their endangered, modern-day counterparts. “In primitive times, people wouldn’t kill animals that were useless to them,” Wei said in another interview with the Chongqing Morning Post. He says the pandas lived in the Chongqing Mountains between 10,000 and 1 million years ago.
