Re: Humans as scavengers


snikers...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Hey all,

I was wondering if you could resolve an argument for me. I was talking
to a friend about the natural diet of humans. It was my stance that
humans have a rather robust digestive system as compared to most
animals, and are capable of eating food that's considerably ripened
beyond that which most animals can eat. I went on to say that we were
gatherers much more than we were hunters, and that we were scavengers
beyond anything else.

My friend's stance was that we have no tolerance for semi-rotten meat,
and that we hunted far more than we gathered.

First of all, am I terribly, terribly wrong? Secondly, if I am in fact
correct, could any of you point me towards some peer-reviewed articles
or proof I can use to back up my point?

You are quite correct. I don't have anything peer reviewed, but here
are some ethnographic accounts that will back up your claims (Pete is
right on with the learning as a child idea).

This subject was brought up before on sap
http://tinyurl.com/vbyct

http://eklhad.net/stories/respect-e.html
"But in this case the body had rotted for three days, and the well
cooked meat still retained its putrid smell. I took my first bite and
almost spit it back out. The sour taste of rancid meat was
overwhelming."

A friend of mine who hunts in Africa says it's absolutely appalling to
see the water holes people drink out of and do not die from the
experience. The Leakeys never could get the taste of rhino piss out of
the water they were drinking at Olduvai, even after boiling it and
straining it through charcoal (or coffee grounds, I forget which).

We also adjust fine to an almost total meat diet, showing we would have
no trouble as scavengers.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010119.html
"Much of what we know about the Eskimo diet comes from the legendary
arctic anthropologist and adventurer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who made
several daredevil journeys through the region in the early 20th
century. Stefansson noticed the same thing you did, that the
traditional Eskimo diet consisted largely of meat and fish, with
fruits, vegetables, and other carbohydrates--the usual source of
vitamin C--accounting for as little as 2 percent of total calorie
intake. Yet they didn't get scurvy.
Stefansson argued that the native peoples of the arctic got their
vitamin C from meat that was raw or minimally cooked--cooking, it
seems, destroys the vitamin. (In fact, for a long time "Eskimo" was
thought to be a derisive Native American term meaning "eater of raw
flesh," although this is now discounted.) Stefansson claimed the high
incidence of scurvy among European explorers could be explained by
their refusal to eat like the natives. He proved this to his own
satisfaction by subsisting in good health for lengthy periods--one
memorable odyssey lasted for five years--strictly on whatever meat and
fish he and his companions could catch."

.

Relevant Pages

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