Were Our Ancestors Carnivores?

 Sorry, vegetarians, but our ancestors may, in fact, have been carnivores and specialist pack hunters.

The theory is that based on genetic evidence and the non-existence of tools for obtaining plant food until relatively recently.

We hunted large animals. Our stomach acid is designed to break down meat, including old meat. We probably invented cooking not to make our food easier to digest but as a means of preservation.

Then something happened. We started to eat more plant food. This change appears to have happened about 85,000 years ago in Africa, and about 40,000 years ago in Asia and Europe (The article doesn't mention North America, probably because the research was conducted in Israel and distance).

Except there's something else that happened in Europe and Asia about 40,000 years ago:

The extinction of Neanderthals.

There's already evidence that Neanderthals were, if anything, even more into hunting large animals than we were.

Did the Neanderthals die out not because of fighting with us, not because of carrying capacity (My personal theory until now because of their higher caloric needs) but because they weren't able to make the switch to eating a more plant-based diet? Could it be that because of the cold they were, like modern Inuits, more heavily adapted to subsisting entirely on meat?

It's possible...and puts a somewhat different spin on things (and makes Jean Auel another step wrong, poor woman).