Re: Hobbits and shellfish - a note.

Mario Petrinovic wrote:
Kat Szabo:
Allow me to elaborate on the 'hobbit shellfish' issue as the one who
actually did the analysis of the Liang Bua molluscan material. One of
the most notable things about the molluscan remains from Liang Bua was
their presence (in some numbers) in the Holocene deposits associated
with Homo sapiens, and their utter absence from hobbit levels. There
did not seem to be good taphonomic reasons for this absence. I should
also point out that Liang Bua is an inland site, and even Holocene
levels are focussed on freshwater shellfish, so we are dealing with
freshwater rather than marine environments here. From 45kyr onwards
(based on current evidence) freshwater molluscs are clearly being
exploited elsewhere in Island Southeast Asia by Homo sapiens (sites in
Borneo and Sulawesi), and there are dense marine shellfish middens in
Timor at this time as well.

From my quick scan of this thread, I think people have read quite a
bit into the results than was actually said in the JHE paper. We only
have one H. floresiensis site so far, and so, necessarily, all our
information is drawn from that. That said, the Liang Bua faunal
sequence is very different in its overall structure to that seen in
comtemporaneous H. sapiens deposits from elsewhere in Island Southeast
Asia. Where analysis has been thorough and accurate, H. sapiens can
be seen to be exploiting a diverse range of resources from different
habitats and requiring different capture technologies. The Liang Bua
assemblage is considerably more focussed. We need more sites in order
to determine whether this is a quirk of Liang Bua, or whether this is
fairly representing a pattern with H. floresiensis. Nevertheless, the
lack of freshwater molluscs in hobbit levels, given their common
occurence in contemporaneous H. sapiens sites and indeed the Holocene
levels of Liang Bua itself is surely worthy of note even if currently
behaviourly obscure.

Thanks, Kat.
I don't know on what thread is your notice.
But, I presaume that freshwater molluscs were eaten salty. For this
you need to have the salt industry and trade, I presume.
Secondly, molluscs are easily obtained food resource for Homo, and
for a primate as a matter of fact (if baboons can eat it, Homo can
definitely eat it, especially on island). So, the conclusion that Hobbits
didn't eat it is very probably wrong. The question is WHY they DIDN'T eat
freshwater molluscs. If you ask me, this is the evidence that STRONGLY points to salty food eating, just like we are eating it.
I want to point to the fact that salty food eating is irrational.
When you are thursty you don't soak your food into water, instead you simply
drink water. The same is with salt, you DON'T salt your food, instead you lick salt, just like any other animal.
This line of thought strongly points to the marine (coast) origin of
our species, beacuse we eat salty food ONLY (AFAIK, the only food that we don't eat salty is our pre-marine phase food, fruits). -- Mario Petrinovic

I'll chime in here.

I would suggest that only cultures that had a need
to preserve meat would have LEARNED to like salted
food. I would suggest that cultures that hunt and
gather on a regular basis and do not preserve and
store meat have not not learned to salt their food
and therefore have not learned to like salted food.

Do Inuit peoples salt their food? I don't know. Do
'kung people salt their food? I also don't know but
I suspect that neither do so. Did people who followed
an archaic lifestyle salt their food? Again I don't
know but I'd like to hear from some who might.

We don't need a whole lot of salt in our diet and
there are some conditions where salt is downright
dangerous. Carnivores generally get enough salt from
their prey. Herbivores need salt licks because
usually their diet does not provide salt.

Up until a few years ago (maybe 100) the only practical
way to preserve meat was to salt (cure) it. Salt
starts the lactic acid fermentation process which is
the real preservative. Drying was the only other
method of meat preservation available to early
humans. We learned to like salted meat and other
foods because that's all there was. We cook with
recipes which mimic in many ways the need to cook
with salted food.

Anyway, my thesis is that eating salted food is learned.
.

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