Amadeus Schmidt  wrote:
The area a gatherhunting person needs to live on is rather big.
If he or she is living in a family or group it's bigger. Too big to stay on
one place. I think it's wellknown that gatherhunters constantly move. Fixed
(year round) houses are a achievement of neolithic agriculture. Maybe a
reason for the transition.

My response:
I totally disagree.  You are hypothesizing that each person needs thus and
such amount of land to get his or her food and that this need is too great
for people to stay in one place.  Perhaps in a dry savannah that MAY be so,
but in a lush coastal area, in a temperate climate, I don't think your
hypothesis holds water!  Fish are prolific (like rabbits, but moreso!);
water plants are prolific; nut and fruit trees are prolific.  With an
abundance of food sources---many varieties of fruits, vegetables, nuts,
birds, fish, and small mammals, a group of people need not exhuast their
food supply.  In places where there are a distinct seasons, different foods
come to fruition at different times.  Since humans have feet (unlike fish),
they could explore various food sources in a given area, without having to
be always moving.  They could take day trips or explore areas within walking
distance (for fun), but not have to be on the move to meet nutrient needs.

There are many examples of primitive peoples studied within the past 100 to
200 years who were not always moving, who stayed in one general area.  The
Kitavans are just one example.  Dr. Weston Price gave others  It is only
when one lives in a drier area, where food and water are scarce, that people
must constantly move in search of food.  It seems that you want to always
argue that man was constantly beset by food shortages.  Can you not see how
abundant nature is?  Some things can be picked, then grow back within days,
for example, certain types of leafy greens.

If you took a population of 1 million people spread over the entire earth,
there would be way more than enough food for people hunting and gathering
and living near the land water interface.  Heck, if you put 1 million people
on the North American continent, 100 or 200 years ago, given written
accounts of rivers and streams and lakes teeming with fish, birds and bison
roaming, and tons of plants, there would not have been a shortage.  Our
currently massive population is very recent in the context of our estimated
time on earth.  In my experience, vegetarians want to argue that we can or
should only eat in a way that would support the largest (human) population
possible.  Mother Nature does not have that as her goal.  Left to Nature's
way (extended breast feeding, living close to nature, etc.), human
populations are much smaller.

I have read about life in Ohio in the 1800s.  The amount of fish, fowl,
game, and vegetation available was mind boggling.  One can read accounts of
such abundance all over the US and in other countries, when there were a lot
more people than would be reasonable to surmise 1000 or 2000 or 10,000 or
50,000 years ago.  Obviously nature is abundant; look how much she grows for
us with agriculture.  Even without our plantin food, she produces more than
enough.  It is only when we abuse the land that it cannot support us well
and begins to die or turn to dessert.

I do not want to endlessly debate with you.  I am frustrated by the fact
that you keep pushing a "poverty mentality," saying there must have been too
little food to go around; it's impossible for man to get enough calories
eating lean meat or fish; man could only meet his calorie needs living on a
tuber-and nut-based diet.  Neither Don or I ever argued that man lived by
meat and fat (or fish) alone.  He would not have to if  he mainly lived (or
orginated) in a temperate region, where both animals and plants flourished.
With fewer people there would have been more than enough to go around.

Enough already.  I don't by into the "poverty mentality."

Rachel