Re: FITNESS: Diet and Exercise

From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Sun Apr 13 2003 - 11:46:07 MDT

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    On Sun, Apr 13, 2003 at 10:51:54AM -0400, gts wrote:

    > I agree with your point, but state further that hunter-gatherer cultures
    > (those very few that remain) are the best models we have of prehistoric
    > Paleolithic cultures. The problem I was pointing out is that many primitive

    It's worth noting that most surviving H-G cultures were the ones pushed into
    marginal habitats, ones unusable by farmers or pastoralists. If they seem to
    eat a lot of meat, it might be because of a scarcity of plants. The diet of
    North American Indians might be a better gauge than that of Bushmen,
    aborigines, or Eskimo.

    As for the aborigines, in _Triumph of the Nomads_ by Blainey, Mervyn Meggit is
    cited as saying perhaps 70-80% of the bulk of the food eaten in tropical
    Australia had been vegetables. Also "A man who spent half a lifetime with
    aboriginals recalled long periods in which roots were the main food and meat
    was almost a luxury." On the other hand, where fish was plentiful it's
    guessed that was a majority of the diet. So, it varies a lot. And technology
    did change, both in hunting (spear throwers, fishhooks, nets, boats...) and
    gathering (hey, we can eat that.) Although I'd guess knowledge of plants was
    earlier established in our homelands, vs. the Last Continent...

    > difficulty of hunting with primitive weapons. As I mentioned, it is
    > theorized that prehistoric humans actually hunted many species into

    And I'm sympathetic to that my view myself, but I also know it's disputed.
    Lack of signs of butchery or large-scale hunting.

    > extinction. This may have given impetus to the agricultural revolution.
    > Hungry people had to find a way to survive.

    For agriculture, I prefer the view that rising sea levels did it. Humans tend
    to congregate on the coasts. Give them a double whammy of climate change
    (changing the climate foragers had been used to) and a rising sea pushing a
    large percentage of the population back into the suddenly crowded hinterland
    and you might have a situation forcing any incipient horticultural skills to
    turn into full agriculture, where possible.

    > I'll find that Cordain article that you requested off-list, and post

    So, what do researchers *besides* Cordain think? Are you citing a consensus,
    or allying yourself with one side of a polarized academic debate?

    -xx- Damien X-)



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