On Wed, 3 Jan 2001 15:00:34 +1100, Richard Archer <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>Five pounds of vegetables seems more than a little unrealistic to me.
>A population consuming that much vegetable matter would soon eat
>their area out of plant food and have to either move away or switch
>to eating meat.

I think the probability to eat an area out of plant food is much
greater, when eating meat. At last the animal, which is to be eaten has to
eat ten times of vegetables before to achieve the same of own weight.
Actually the factor 10 is one between farmed cattle and pigs.
Wild game will eat much more to gain weight.
This is how the very vast areas necessary for a hunting population
accumulate.

So a switch to eating meat like you propose wouldn't be a possibility.
Except in grasslands or areas where a very high percentage of the plants are
inedible to humans, but edible to animals.

>Consider that our ancestors hunted many species into extinction, and
>the verve with which they hunted for meat becomes apparent.

If they did so (before game populations became too sparse for any human
population to survivem)
this is a sign how quick animal populations are used up and gone.

Ray Audette wrote:
>As Loren Cordain has pointed out, the primary game species of the
>Pleistocene contined much more fat than even those domestic animals who
>have  been bred to express their Pleistocene DNA origins and store extra
>fat.

Could you point out where to find this reference of Loren Cordaine?
Could it be that it was only in glaciation or some northern regions,
inhabited only by human traits which are extinct today?
I agree that the primary game species were fat.
They must have been fat to be eaten in amount.
But when and where were such available?

>This huge grassland covered a much larger portion of the earth than do the
>dry grasslands of today.

In Asia.

> Even in the dry grasslands of today the traditional people such as Plains
> Indians, Tutsis and Mogols consume a diet that is far higher in fat than
> even I consume.

Could you list us some sources, where you base this claim on?
I know that such animal based societies exist, the Massai are such too.
Massai, Tutsis and Mongols have a high fat diet, but that is only possible
due to their herding agriculture, using plenty of dairy,
thus not paleolithic.
Herding animals give a great percentage of what they eat as milk (up to 75%
with modern cows). But only <10% as meat.
Where does the fat (higher as you consume) of the Plains Indians come from?
I mean without riding horses....

Amadeus S.