Re: A.robustus diet included sedges

"Chapstick" <chapstick@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uHI6h.25823$nG1.4068@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-11/uoca-vdo110606.php
"diverse diet ranging from fruits and nuts to sedges, grasses, seeds and
perhaps even animals ... moving back and forth between forested areas
rich in fruits to a savanna and grassland landscape, perhaps along
sedge-rich waterways ..."

hi
I did a google search on "sedges" and found that the plant is most
often used as an ornamental in gardens and/or is wild all over the world
in (mostly) moist areas.
my question is: are sedges still consumed by humans today in any
culture(s)? Are there any hybrids of the plant that we consume regularly?
(ie, like maize/corn that was domesticated from a wild, small version.)
furthermore, sedges seem to be a relative of the grasses, so would this
be the beginning of humans consuming a lot of grain products?
TIA, --chap

Yes, likely IMO: rice (perhaps the most important food of humans) grows in
shallow water. From our TREE paper (can be found in the AAT files):
"Independent lines of evidence thus suggest that different australopith
species regularly waded for shallow-water plants, possibly like lowland
gorillas do today15, only much more frequently. Papyrus or reed sedges were
abundant in australopith environments (Table 2) and are part of the diet of
extant hominids [sensu Pan+Homo+Gorilla]. Gorillas eat bamboo shoots and
stalks, as well as swamp herbs and sedges (Table 1); all hominids eat cane;
bipedally wading chimpanzees and humans collect water-lilies; and rice
growing in shallow water and other cereals are staple foods for humans."
Parts of cyper sedges are eaten by humans (eg, Puech, ref in our TREE
paper). You say: "still consumed by humans", but the above was not about us
or our ancestors, but about partially sedge-eating apiths, which IMO were
not our ancestors, but fossil hominids (= relatives of Pan-Homo-Gorilla):
apiths have nothing human: no very long legs, no external nose, no large
brain, etc.; their "bipedal"(=wading?) features strongly differ from our
bipedality: they had short legs, very broad bodies (flaring ilia, long
femoral necks etc.), arm-hanging features (eg, curved phalanges), and
according to different authors even knuckle-walking features: I see them
wading in swamp & collecting parts of water plants with the hands, walking
on 2 legs or KWing on 4 limbs on dry ground, and climbing arms overhead out
of the swamp (as Ndoki lowland gorillas do) & in the branches above or near
the swamps.

--Marc Verhaegen
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm

http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Fil/Verhaegen_Human_Evolution.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AAT


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Relevant Pages

  • Re: A.robustus diet included sedges
    ... I did a google search on "sedges" and found that the plant is most ... this be the beginning of humans consuming a lot of grain products? ... water-lilies; and rice growing in shallow water and other cereals are ... I see them wading in swamp & collecting parts of water plants ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: A.robustus diet included sedges
    ... I did a google search on "sedges" and found that the plant is most ... this be the beginning of humans consuming a lot of grain products? ... what apiths ate has not much to do with what our ancestors ... I see them wading in swamp & collecting parts of water plants ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)