Re: evolution and diet (was: FITNESS: Diet and Exercise)

From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 24 2003 - 16:10:32 MDT

  • Next message: Damien Sullivan: "Re: evolution and diet (was: FITNESS: Diet and Exercise)"

    On Mon, Apr 21, 2003 at 12:39:11PM -0700, Mike Lorrey wrote:

    > It was only when some individuals got the bright idea of selecting
    > grains from the most fruitful plants to grow in isolation that the long
    > process of domestication occured. The development of this technology

    This "bright idea" seems very unlikely to me. Much more plausible is that
    people were eating grains casually already, possibly even engaging in a bit of
    low-effort horticulture, and selection happened naturally. Fatter grains got
    gathered more often, allowing for more of their seeds to be dropped near the
    village (hunter-gatherer mobility is inversely correlated with local
    productivity; they're not necessarily nomadic, just when they have to be.
    Which would have been less in the Fertile Crescent back then.) to be gathered
    and brought back all over again. Do this long enough and you've got major
    changes in the grains, ready to fall back on when the rising sea levels cause
    sudden crowding along with the climate-change disruptions in food supply.

    Jane Jacobs had her own twist on this, with lots of people going to an early
    trade city like Catalhuyuk, bringing their own foods with them and a jump in
    hybridization around the city.

    -xx- Damien X-)



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