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Curious: If paleolithic humans gathered the plants available...

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  • GonzosaysMeow
    GonzosaysMeow Posts: 16 Member
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    Nothing new to say here, but I appreciate the talk of eating bugs. I think about eating them when this house of cards finally collapses. I'll wait though...
  • Vune
    Vune Posts: 672 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Read Guns, Germs, and Steel for a 1,200 page answer to this question.

    And I'm only on chapter 3! Bought the book as my gift to myself last Christmas, but I got sidetracked by school, then had to read the trilogy my boyfriend got me for Valentine's Day because he nags me (The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie is an adequate political fantasy story, if anyone is interested). I guess the book inspired my question! I've also read excerpts from The Third Chimpanzee. Should I put that in my my Amazon cart, too?

    Also, are dragonflies poisonous? I've always thought they'd look pretty on a pizza!
  • haviegirl
    haviegirl Posts: 230 Member
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    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    Vune wrote: »
    Why do we assume they didn't gather easy-to-pick grains, like wheat? Seriously, they had 50,000ish years after migrating out of Africa to discover and use them, so why do we assume they stumbled on wheat at the onset of the agricultural revolution?

    Hopefully, there's a cultural anthropologist out there waiting to jump on this question. I look forward to reading the answers when I get back from vacation.

    I can do better than a cultural anthropologist (who tend to study living populations, fyi). Archaeologist here. Previous responders have already addressed the points I'd have made, but basically, yes, Palaeolithic peoples did gather grains when and where available (plenty of archaeological evidence for this), though as someone pointed out, these were not as easily gathered as modern varieties, which have been bred to be more indehiscent (had to chuck in a big word to seem legit ;) ).

    Basically, the 'paleo' diet is a crock. As my profile tag line says, a real Palaeo diet = anything that you can ingest that doesn't kill you, while avoiding anything that might kill you if it gets the chance.

    I am totally working "indehiscent" into conversation tomorrow. Maybe during my pedicure... :)

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