Re: Bipedalism in different substrates

From: Bob Keeter (rkeeter_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 06/28/04 

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 10:57:26 GMT

"Pauline M Ross" <pmross@ross-software.co.uk> wrote in message
news:33evd0heh1tqsnvqj4on1jj7579smooh7p@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 15:33:33 GMT, "Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
> >The question would be. . . . is it more logical to expect
> >a primate that might just have its ancestory traced to a place like Chad
> >to develop a taste for sea food or the ancient Chadian fauna?
>
> Naturally they would have eaten whatever was around, and for the early
> hominids that was lakes, rivers and forests rather than sea (so far as
> we know).

Well, we can be pretty sure of the forests and terrestrial food sources
since
those are in fact the food sources all of our cousins exploit. Could I ask
for one piece of evidence that hominids more than about 500kya or so
exploited any aquatic food source, plant or animal? Cant remember the
dates right now, but lets just say any time before the Terra Amata site.

> >First off, liver is the BEST source, but even muscle meat far exceeds
> >the other sources.
>
> Not true. Oily fish is better - 5mcg per 100g compared with 2mcg in
> non-offal beef, white fish or eggs. But pig's liver has 25 mcg per
> 100g.

My apologies. You have the numbers and I have no reason to disagree.
Now, "oily fish" if Im thinking right are things like mackeral, anchovies,
and such, right? NOT catfish, or other fresh water fish. Oily fish also
IIRC usually tend to be pelagic fish, not coastal, and quite proficient
swimmers. If I was to toss in "available to early hominids" to that earlier
statement about muscle meat being the better source, would you feel
better?

> >Second, if you would concede that chimp meat
> >consumption is anthing like our ancient ancestors, it would appear
> >that they stepped right past the notional "scavanging" stage. This is
> >not to say that they, or our ancient ancestors, would have passed up
> >a free buffet, just that its not realistic to expect that "scavanging"
> >transition.
>
> Well, we don't know that. Chimps hunt, after a fashion, but (I
> believe) bonobos and gorillas don't. So we can't be sure that hunting
> predates the split.

If "we dont know" is sufficient reason to dismiss a hypothesis, this would
be a very quite discussion group! 8-) Chimps hunt. Sometimes they
hunt singly but most often its a cooperative, coordinated hunt. As for the
bonobos. . . . . I think that they are perhaps "in between" in terms
of the chimps and gorillas. Gorillas eat more of what I would call
"fiberous
plants" and less fruit than a chimp, and I believe that except for insects
and grubs, are pretty much vegans. On the other hand, bonobos are
not above eating meat when they can get it. They apparently hold themselves
to smaller prey animals than chimps and dont have as well organized hunts,
but
you can go "rabbit hunting" as well as "elk hunting" and both can go
into the stewpot!
http://nagonline.net/Diets%20pdf/Bonobo%20Nutrition.pdf

> And the evidence from those cut marks (and tooth marks) on bones is
> equivocal - some look as if the predators got there first, some as if
> the hominids did. And even when the hominids were first, there's no
> way to be sure whether they hunted the animal or drove the predators
> off after they had killed it. So I think the jury's still out on early
> hunting.

Oh, I dont think that there is any doubt that ancient hominids, if hungry
enough, would have resorted to scavanging predator kills. I would be
surprised if a modern but primative human society has any real qualms
about hacking off a haunch from a fresh predator kill if they are hungry.
I know that I would not!

My own personal beliefs is that "hunting" probably started off with the
smaller, less challenging and more available prey (like the colubus
monkeys that are the prime targets of chimp predation, or for that matter
any small, slow moving ground mammal, bird or reptile). Likely, the
meat from larger prey animals that shows up in very early hominid sites
was scavanged.

Only after gaining the taste for the meat, the confidence and the
technology would those early hominids have stepped up to larger, more
dangerous, and more difficult ungulant prey, IMHO at least.

Regards
bk

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