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.
>
> 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."

This is under modern day conditions - encroachment of habitat, more
humans to avoid, hunting of predators for sport, etc. It would be of
more interest to examine older accounts before development entered into
the picture.

> 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.
>
> 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

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    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
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  • Re: Move over Piltdown, here comes AAH
    ... >If you can get a hold of Ancestors: In Search of Human Origins, Random, ... there's an entire chapter on scavenging and possible ... >Johanson page 118: "There's no other way you could get so many calories ... She found one carcase every 9.3 ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
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