Re: meat 'fuel of human evolution'


Day Brown wrote:
On Sep 15, 10:10 pm, Lee Olsen <paleoc...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 15, 2:25 pm, Day Brown <daybr...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The primates mostly depend on fruit.
What primates, could you be more specific?
I cant think of any that dont eat lotsa fruit if given the choice.
Perhaps you have some in mind?

The Bonobo have been seen to
carry sharp bone shards of large herbivores that they use to dig
tubers in the soft alleuvial soil in their habitat south of the Congo.
The ground is so permeable that there are no springs, & water merely
seeps thru the duff twards the river.
Kofola River, Bokela River, Luo River, Congo River, and lots of swamps
also.
Those are all rivers.

Yes, and you did specify "river" above. It only takes a few seconds on
Google to show the Congo Basin is loaded with tributary rivers.
Tributaries have tributaries also, so I don't know why you jumped from
"no springs, & water merely
seeps thru the duff twards the river." You were giving the
impression that there was nothing in-between, and there certainly are
creeks, swamps etc.

I have not read the Bonobo use of swamps.

I didn't say they were using swamps, only pointing out they were in
the area that you claimed "seeped through."

Not hard to get a few miles away from a river which presents the
problem.

But when a Bonobo eats a tuber, he gets a drink, as well as a high
carb charge. Of course, the dirt from eating tubers affected the
teeth, so that the Bonobo have the thickest dentine of all the
primates.

Do you have a citation for that conclusion?
Wrangham & Peterson, "Demonic Males" cites Japanese researchers on the
Bonobo work- which dont get a lotta press in the states because of the
way Bonobo sexual customs offend Christian sensibilities.

Well, I'm not citing from someone citing someone else. I'm citing
directly from one of the Japanese researches, Kano.


>Except one: hominids.

Since not all hominids are the same, which hominids are you talking about?
All surviving hominids according to Wrangham & Peterson. Their work
deals with living species.

OK, but extrapolating back is not as good as the archaeological record
if we have one. And we do after a certain point. This point does not
match the geograpical location of most of your fruit eating primates.


You dont need it if you are primarily
a meat eater.

You do not need C4 teeth if you are primarily a C3 fruit eater.
Tubers are not leaves, fruits, nor grasses.

You said above: "The primates mostly depend on fruit."
Are you saying now: The primates mostly depend on tubers? Or are
bonobos simply an exception?

The Kalihari Pygmi carried
digging sticks, both for protection, but also to dig tubers to get a
drink- which also provided a dose of carbs, just as they do for the
Bonobo.

The Pygmies are not early Homo and bonobos are not early Homo. Most
fruit eating primates are not early Homo.

All the known evidence for early Homo suggests meat use as the driving
force of our quite different from the other primate evolution.



http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2001/december/hominids.htm
Thanx for the link. At the end, they note the diversity of hominid
diets, Which had a lot to with success. Part of all this arises from
the colonial era idea which focused on the activities of the male
hunters, and ignored the contribution by women of the plant material
in the diet. Hunting makes better video. The assumption by the
patriarchic colonialists had always been that hominids survived
because of the prowess of the hunters and warriors. It became part of
the group think, so any variation from that was dismissed.

There is nothing political about the archaeological record. We clearly
did not evolve in the same habitat as your bonobo example or else we
would be bonobos. All the "women" and "plant material" examples are
from a *home base* format. This appears to have happened much later in
our evolution and therefore very irrelevant with what was going on at
Gona 2.6 mya.

What you seem to be arguing is early Homo must have been doing the
same (digging sticks, women's work, etc) as other primates are doing
now (and Pygmies), but we somehow ended up different than the other
fruit eating primates. If I have this wrong, please clarify your
position.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: meat fuel of human evolution
    ... I cant think of any that dont eat lotsa fruit if given the choice. ... Kofola River, Bokela River, Luo River, Congo River, and lots of swamps ... I have not read the Bonobo use of swamps. ... Since not all hominids are the same, which hominids are you talking about? ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: meat fuel of human evolution
    ... What primates, ... tubers in the soft alleuvial soil in their habitat south of the Congo. ... Kofola River, Bokela River, Luo River, Congo River, and lots of swamps ... a meat eater. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: meat fuel of human evolution
    ... The primates mostly depend on fruit. ... carry sharp bone shards of large herbivores that they use to dig ... tubers in the soft alleuvial soil in their habitat south of the Congo. ... But when a Bonobo eats a tuber, he gets a drink, as well as a high ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: How come theres never been a sci-fi plot for a Bonobo cultural takeover?
    ... Bonobo" theory turned out to be... ... a fair amount of conflict, but don't resort to dangerous levels of ... Against other primates: ... "The problem is not that the world is full of fools, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
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