Re: The start of food prduction


"Peter Alaca" <P.Alaca@xxxxxx> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:4512c97d$0$39045$dbd4d001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Uwe Müller wrote: news:eeuau9$gsb$1@xxxxxxxxx

I found infos on diet and food culture from the upper palaolithic ca
21000 years ago, the site Ohalo II.

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/07.22/07-grain.html

"At Ohalo II, grass seeds were the principal plant food, augmented by
a wide variety of other wild foods, including acorns, almonds,
pistachios, olives, raspberries, figs, and grapes.

"The site shows us that the plant-human relationship that was part of
the beginnings of agriculture was not a short one," Weiss said. "It
was a long association." " ... "Among the 19,000 grass seeds found
were a significant number of wild wheat and barley seeds. While this
pushes wild cereal use back much earlier than previously known, Weiss
said the discovery of significant cereal use was not very surprising
because these plants are dominant foods found at later sites. "

"The theory holds that with changing climactic conditions and
increasing human population, the few primary foods of early
hunter-gatherers were no longer adequate to sustain them.

In response, Paleolithic people began hunting and gathering a much
broader range of foods, including what would be considered far less
desirable choices because of the labor involved in their capture
versus the amount of food they yielded."

Followed by:

"Called by scientists the "broad spectrum
revolution," this development ultimately led to
domestication of plants and animals and the
development of agriculture. Hunter-gatherers,
casting their nets farther for food, began using
the plants and animals that they eventually
farmed and herded.

Though evidence of this dietary expansion has
been found among animal remains as far back
as 50,000 years, until now there has been no
evidence that early humans broadened their
plant diet as well, mainly due to the scarcity
of preserved plant remains."

I have a slight problem with this. With a scarcity
of preserved plant remains, how is it possible to
know there was now broad spectrum plant use
from the beginning? It seems normal to me to
try 'everything' before specializing.


They are fostering a pet theory in the sites, at least as much as presenting
their data. So they are putting a lot of stress on the difference in numbers
of plant species compared with older sites. I would think the different
conditions of preservation were explanation enough.

There are more problems to the interpretation I could imagine. Compare the
date of the burial given at 19000 years BCE with the settlement's 21000 BCE.
A short lived settlement qickly covered and submerged?

OTOH this site seems to have used different ecosystems among them a (cold?)
dry steppe (for grasses and cereals, antelopes), wetlands (fish and
molluscae) and a temperate light forest (from acorns to figs, cattle and
wild boar).

It can connect cattle and boar with wheat and barley, giving the major
ingredients of neolithisation. It could sustain a mesolithic HG group during
all seasons, enabling a sedentary style of living (in theory).

And, as in NW Europe, they did not start food production immediately but
only much later. It could explain Phils N African genetic influences too, as
the HGs (and the other species) would have followed the receding glaciers to
the north. Having sheltered habitats (almonds, vine, figs) would also give
an explanation for the rapid spread of post glacial vegetation.

Except, of course, if we believe the theory of food shortage as a reason for
collecting small grass seed.

have fun

Uwe Mueller


.

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