Re: Move over Piltdown, here comes AAH

Pauline M Ross wrote:
> On 9 Nov 2005 09:12:32 -0800, "Lee Olsen" <paleocity@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> >> "... when the option was available..."? And how often was that, then?
> >
> >If you can get a hold of Ancestors: In Search of Human Origins, Random,
> >1994
> > by Johanson, there's an entire chapter on scavenging and possible
> >volume available.
> >Johanson page 118: "There's no other way you could get so many calories
> >so fast out there."
>
> Martha Tappen did some slightly more recent (2001) research on this,
> assessing every carcase she or her team encountered by chance in their
> 'territory', and sometimes deliberately looking for them; she used a
> land-rover to get to many of them. She found one carcase every 9.3
> days, occurring rather irregularly, and averaging approximately 215
> calories per day of usable meat, marrow and brains. Whether that would
> be a significant resource would depend on the group size.

The error of her reasoning is obvious for two reasons. Key words:
"encountered by chance" and Plio/Pleistocene.

Even tigers, when scavenging, do not operate on the principle of
chance. They are known to watch and respond to flying vultures and head
in their direction at any sign of commotion. Early hominids must have
been as intelligent as tigers.
Blumenschine (1994) assumed "prior knowledge" of "promising locations"
as the basis for his experiments. Any scavenger, be it hyenas,
hominids, or whoever were not lost souls wandering aimlessly around on
the savanna wondering where to look next.



>
> She concluded: "Scavenging opportunities are too unpredictable and
> rare to be a highly ranked food item for early hominids because
> deliberate search for them has a high rate of failure."

Too unpredictable? Then why aren't all the other full-time scavengers
extinct?
In today's world I would agree Tappen could be right depending on
specific locations as far as present-day Africa is concerned, but the
Plio/Pleistocene, when early hominid evolution was taking place, was
not the Africa of today.

"We must also consider that two million years ago there were many more
herbivore species grazing on the savanna than there are today (Johanson
1994:114)."
Several species of cats and hyenas are also missing. It is thought that
the ratios of extant animals are pretty much the same today as it was
two million years ago, but the actual animal census is harder to judge
in the past.


>
> Manuel Dominguez-Rodriguez has assessed cut-marks on bones to conclude
> that the early tool-users were not *passive* scavengers - they had
> primary access to most carcases. Active scavenging (driving away the
> original predators) remains on the cards, as do scavenging from mass
> migratory deaths and hunting.


Since cut marks are found on bones over scavenger tooth marks and
tooth marks are found over cut marks, both types of access are proven
true. It's guesstimated that only about one bone in a million is
fossilized and not all butchered bones have cut marks and not all
scavenged bones have tooth marks, I would imagine it's going to be
pretty hard to tell just what method was preferred early on. Or, the
ratios may have changed/alternated over time.



>
> Refs:
>
> Dominguez-Rodrigo, M. 2002. Hunting and Scavenging by Early Humans:
> The State of the Debate. Journal of World Prehistory 16(1)
>
> Tappen, M. Deconstructing the Serengeti, from 'Meat-Eating and the
> Fossil Record', 2001, ed.Stanford & Bunn
>
> --
> Pauline Ross

.

Relevant Pages

  • Gona = waterside butchering of drowned bovids etc
    ... Environment and Behavior of 2.5-Million-Year-Old Bouri Hominids ... hominids used stone tools to butcher large mammal carcasses in an open lake ... butchery' & cracking bones to get marrow) ... ... speculation about hunting, aggressive scavenging, or just mere happenstance. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Move over Piltdown, here comes AAH
    ... Whenever one of them detected signs of a carcase or kill ... so this type of scavenging was ... >tooth marks are found over cut marks, both types of access are proven ... scavenging (taking what's left after primary predators have finished - ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: kuduburgers to go
    ... of Foods Available to African Hominids ... Hominid modification to bovid bones ... cut marks. ... illustrating cut marks on the medial ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: We are wired to run
    ... of Foods Available to African Hominids ... Hominid modification to bovid bones ... cut marks. ... illustrating cut marks on the medial ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Bipedalism in different substrates
    ... >> scavenging from predator kills). ... Not a year round food source. ... > Early hominids had to eat year round. ... leftovers than a fresh kill from hungry animals. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
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